Workers' Comp Legislation Deserves a Hearing

As we noted yesterday, employer-backed HB 2950 contains three essential, common-sense reforms to our state's ailing workers' compensation system. Yet, primarily because of inexplicable union defense of the status quo, the bill may not even receive a hearing. Good background in Austin Jenkins's blog.

Now entering the mix is an initiative filed by the Building Industry Association of Washington to privatize the state's unusual monopoly (only four states, including Washington, operate exclusive state funds). 

And speaking of unusual, the Seattle Weekly devotes an inordinate amount of space to a well-researched and highly readable workers' compensation story by Laura Onstot. She notes business concerns with the high costs of workers' comp here and its effect on interstate competitiveness.

Given the bad economic climate and the shocking loss of Boeing's assembly plant, these longtime complaints are getting a new hearing, as even liberal politicians worry about the state's "business climate." Two bills have already been introduced in the current legislative session to try to reform the workers'-comp system.

But politically powerful labor unions aren't likely to let much happen. They treasure Washington's system, which offers the third-most-generous benefits package among all states, according to the National Academy for Social Insurance, a D.C.–based think tank that evaluates government programs like Social Security and workers' comp.

In Washington, an injured employee can start collecting a paycheck from the state after just three missed workdays, rather than the seven required in most states. While most states only replace two-thirds of your salary while you're off work, Washington pays as much as 75 percent. And for people who are declared unable to work for life, the annual amount they receive to cover lost wages is adjusted for inflation, something most states don't do.

There's too much in the story to summarize easily here. I recommend you read the whole thing, but I can't resist pointing out this exchange relative to the Oregon comparative workers' comp study that we've criticized here.

"It's real hard when you take systems as dissimilar as Oregon and Washington," acknowledges Mike Manley, who manages the Oregon study. "There's a lot of approximations and assumptions that have to go on."

Right. Business groups have asked that the state participate in a the Workers' Compensation Research Institute's comprehensive benchmarking studies. Then we might get good information like this. So far, no go.