Hurrah for the Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council

On Behalf of | Mar 4, 2013 | Firm News

Every time I read an article about the extreme contentiousness between employers and employees that manifests itself in many States’ legislatures concerning worker’s compensation legislation, I am again reminded of the workings of Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council. Recently, the Republican-controlled Washington State Senate passed three contentious measures intended to save businesses money by changing worker’s compensation rules. Essentially, the bills would overhaul compromise settlement agreements, lowering the age of eligibility from 55 to 40, and allow businesses to schedule medical evaluations so that business can move injured workers through rehabilitation more quickly. Republicans took the Senate in Washington.

The Council aims to maintain the overall stability of the workers’ compensation system without regard to partisan changes in the legislature or executive branches of government

The Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council was created in 1975 to advise the Department and legislature on policy matters concerning the development and administration of the worker’s compensation law. The Council aims to maintain the overall stability of the workers’ compensation system without regard to partisan changes in the legislature or executive branches of government (given the contentiousness of recent Wisconsin executive and legislative elections, this is a real blessing for injured workers and for worker’s compensation practitioners). The Council provides a vehicle for labor and management representatives to play a direct role in recommending changes in the worker’s compensation law to the legislature.

The Council, composed of five management, five labor, and three non-voting insurance members appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Workforce Development and shared by a Department employee meets regularly at different sites around Wisconsin. It occasionally assigns special topics to study committees on such issues as medical cost, permanent disability rates, and attorney fees. The medical committee assigned in the mid-1990s to report on minimum permanency percentages for surgical procedures, for example, issued its findings which resulted in the schedule contained in the Administrative Code. The Council obtains input from various worker’s compensation constituents including interested members of the legal, medical, labor, management, insurance, and employer communities. Public hearings on proposed changes are held, followed by Advisory Council deliberation. The Council has always produced an “agreed upon bill” which results in annual changes and benefit rates and substantive law. This system works in Wisconsin and would be a good template for other states as well.

Archives

Categories

FindLaw Network