Selling out injured workers

By Jeff Johnson

Just a month after celebrating the 100th anniversary of Washington’s workers’ compensation system, Governor Christine Gregoire, along with Senate Democrat and Republican leadership and House Democrat leadership, passed HB 2123, undermining the security of the safety net for injured workers by approving “structured settlement agreements” (compromise and release agreements) whereby workers will receive less than what they are entitled to under the law.

Injured workers 55 years of age or older, ratcheting down to those 50 or older by 2016, will be able to settle their claims at less than their statutory amount. You might ask why workers would agree to lower their benefits. For many workers it won’t be a choice. Strapped financially from receiving only partial wage replacement benefits, many injured workers will accept a lump-sum payment paid out over several months to meet family needs. And once the money is gone, they are just out of luck.

And it will happen. The Department of Labor and Industries assumes that the workers’ compensation state fund will save $335 million in fiscal year 2012 and over half a billion dollars by 2015. Most of these so-called savings will be in the form of lower benefits to injured workers.

Even worse, these settlement agreements are a lure for private insurers. After Initiative 1082, that would have allowed private insurance into our comp system, was defeated by nearly 60% and was voted down in every county, HB 2123 lays out a welcome mat for the private insurance industry. Denying claims and reaching settlement agreements are the means by which private insurers profit in the workers’ compnsation arena. Until now, Washington’s workers’ compensation market has not been all that attractive to private insurers. HB 2123 changes that.

HB 2123 also places a one-year cost of living freeze on injured workers’ time-loss and pension benefits, and offsets the value of a permanent partial disability award against an injured worker’s pension award – both these provisions will lower benefits for our most disabled workers.

The bill includes a positive program modeled after the Oregon “stay at work” program. This measure incentivizes small and medium size employers to bring their injured workers back to employment through offering wage, equipment, and training subsidies to the employer for 66 days. If this works, it will return workers to the job more quickly and reduce long term disability and costs.

The bill also sets up three studies which will look at occupational disease, structured settlement agreements, and the claims management process. Finally the bill continues some funding for health and safety grants that focus on workplace safety training.

While labor could have lived with many portions of the bill, the radical change to compromise and release is a huge and grotesque corporate give-away at the expense of our older and most disabled workers. Shame on the Democrats for selling out injured workers.

(Jeff Johnson is president of the Washington State Labor Council and a PSARA member.)

Coalition’s work pays off with cash for state’s jobless

By Teresa Mosquada

PSARA joined this session with activists for labor, housing, hunger relief, children and working families under the United for Washington’s Families Coalition to call for vital improvements in the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system. After weeks of debate and negotiation, the Legislature approved legislation during the first week of February addressing both taxes and benefits in our UI system.  While not everything the coalition called for, the final bill will result in immediate enhanced cash benefits for UI recipients. 

The coalition had called for a CHILDREN'S BENEFIT FOR UI RECIPIENTS, an additional $15 per week for each child in a family, up to a maximum of $50 per week to help unemployed parents put food on the table, pay the mortgage, and perhaps put gas in the car to drive to job interviews. 

The Children’s Benefit was a good idea not only for UI families, but also for the state’s economic recovery.  Every dollar of UI benefits spent generates two dollars of economic activity. The Children’s Benefit would have helped about 167,000 unemployed workers – one-third of all Washington UI recipients.

When late-stage negotiations failed to produce a new cash benefit, we didn’t give up. Thanks to the coalition’s persistence, House Bill 1091 provided, for all new families on UI, a $25 increase in their weekly benefit starting in March.  This cash increase would not have happened without the support and advocacy of PSARA and the large coalition demanding more substantial benefits for UI recipients to help their families weather this recession. 

While not everything the coalition wanted, House Bill 1091 will provide permanent, immediate tax reductions for small business, leverage federal incentive money by bolstering our training benefits, allow Washington unemployed workers to continue to receive federal extended benefits AND provide immediate relief to families with a temporary $25 per week increase in benefits for new claimants starting in March. 

"Any time you put additional dollars on the kitchen table for struggling unemployed workers and their families, it is a good thing," said Jeff Johnson, President of the Washington State Labor Council. "But the greatest disappointment, and missed opportunity, of these bills is that they do not allow those currently unemployed to receive the additional $25 a week. These workers are the long-term unemployed, whose resources have been stretched beyond all reasonable limits."

Getting an additional $25 on the kitchen table for Washington workers will provide some immediate relief to new UI recipients between March and November this year, and that enhanced amount will continue throughout the life of their claim.  This extra $100 per month will have an immediate beneficial effect, as it will create twice the purchasing power to boost local businesses, even as it enables families to put food on the table.

Our growing coalition looks forward to working with PSARA on the many issues that unite us in protecting and advancing the rights of workers and their families in Washington.

Helpful resources on the latest UI bill actions:

·        Outside the Echo Chamber - http://www.wslc.org/reports/Outside-EC3.htm

·        Tuesday WSLC update - http://www.wslc.org/legis/11lu0208.htm

·        Publicola’s coverage of the Senate vote - http://publicola.com/2011/02/04/senate-dems-pass-ui-tax-break-bill-dependent-benefits-future-unknown/#

·        Publicola’s into to the issue - http://publicola.com/2011/01/13/state-labor-council-wants-more-balanced-approach-on-unemployment-insurance-fix/