Workers’ Comp Alert

Labor’s bills = reform
Republicans’ bills = deform

By JANE LaTOUR

You might have missed the latest war. It has its own opposing armies, one side with small numbers but tremendous
financial resources, the other with greater armies and long casualty lists.

It’s the war to reform or to further deform — depending on your point of view — the New York State Workers Compensation system. The casualties are the injured workers struggling
to support their families on paltry sums of money in a complex and convoluted system.

The battleground
New York State’s maximum workers’ compensation benefit, which was last increased 12 long years ago in 1992, is $400 a week. That $400 was originally 66 percent of the state’s average wage; now it is only 44 percent. In fact, as a percentage of the state’s average wage, the benefit is the lowest of all 50 states.

Yet only 3 percent of injured workers in New York State collect the maximum benefit. At any time, most injured workers are collecting only partial disability payments at rates far lower than the maximum rate.

“The system is bizarre and dysfunctional,” said Dr. Robin Herbert, the co-director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. “Workers’ Comp is supposed to be a lifeline for injured workers. Yet it’s incredibly adver-sarial.”

The business army
Although benefits are already inadequate, the business community is mounting an offensive to enact legislation that would cut their costs by taking benefits away from injured workers.

Their high-priced arsenal includes groups such as the Business Council of New York State, the Independent Business Association, the New York State Small Business Coalition, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Northeast Lumber Association, the New York State Farm Bureau, and even the New York State Tavern Owners Association.

The owners and bosses have a secret weapon: Gov. George E. Pataki. In 1995 he worked hand-in-hand with business in an attempt to weaken protections for injured workers and to shift the cost of workplace injuries and illnesses from employers to workers and from corporations to average taxpayers. Now he is threatening to “reform” the system once again. Labor says the plan is a mean-spirited attack on working people that would “deform” Workers’ Comp.

Labor’s battle plan
As the business army presses for their bills in the State Senate and Assembly, a coalition of unions and organizations is working to implement an alternative program — a real reform of the system. The labor plan would reduce costs while it improves job safety through prevention programs.

The New York State AFL-CIO’s Public Employee Division is leading the statewide counterttack. Together with many other unions, the DC 37 Political Action Dept. is marshalling support troops — waves of rank-and-file lobbyists — as the Safety and Health Dept. provides intelligence analysis on the opposition bills and ammunition for the lobbying teams.

Bob Masters, legislative director for Communications Workers of America, District 1, observed that, “The challenge is much greater now that Gov. Pataki is tacking to the right.”

Joel Shufro, Executive Director of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, said: “The key is for all those who support reform to get organized and to let their representatives know that there is a tremendous need for an increased benefit and for other reforms that will eliminate the obstacles that prevent workers from receiving the prompt, skillful medical care to which they are entitled.”

What you can do

• Support labor’s legislative initiatives — the two companion bills in the Assembly and Senate — A.9736, sponsored by the Assembly Labor Chair Susan John, and S.6135, sponsored by the Senate Labor Chair Guy Velella.
• Call your State legislators and urge them to support this important legislation. Assembly switchboard: 518-455-4100. Senate switchboard: 518-455-2800. State AFL-CIO toll free line for both: 877-255-9417.
• Visit www.nysaflcio.org to send a fax to your state legislator.
• Visit the NYCOSH Web site at www.nycosh.org for more information on the battle to reform — not deform — Workers Comp!