WILG Turns 20! Worker’s Injury Law And Advocacy Group 20th Anniversary

On Behalf of | Jul 30, 2015 | Firm News

I joined WILG in its 1995 inaugural year. At those early conferences, my colleagues around the nation were battling workers’ comp “deform,” and engaged in political battles in their respective states, lobbying legislators on behalf of injured workers’ rights.

I thought I was relatively insulated in Wisconsin, the national “model” state for workers’ comp, with an Advisory Council composed of management and labor which each biennium produced an “agreed-upon” bill that was accepted by the legislature.

The Republican ascendancy in Wisconsin (Scott Walker as Governor, and both Assembly and Senate controlled by Republicans) has decided to ignore 100 years of progressive legislation and ignore the Advisory Council’s recommendations. This dangerous precedent will make workers’ comp more politicized, and threaten the stability of Wisconsin’s workers’ comp system. Wisconsin, like other states, will be part of a “race to the bottom” in workers’ rights and benefits.

WILG’s current President, Matt Belcher of Illinois, provided this summary of the state of workers’ comp as WILG celebrates its 20th anniversary:

“We have never been better positioned as a national organization to advocate on behalf of the families of injured workers.

Recent success in reviewing courts have highlighted nationally the unconstitutional danger posed to the community when injured workers lose access to effective legal representation, have capricious benefit limits imposed upon them, or are disabled due to unfair medical treatment bureaucracies.

WILG and its members have been at the fore of litigation battles where catastrophically injured workers have lost their savings, been forced onto welfare rolls and into Social Security Disability plans while simultaneously being denied access to the civil courthouse and the free exercise of their 7th amendment right to a jury trial. See Wade v. Scott Recycling (Virginia); Malcomson v. Liberty Northwest (Montana); Pilkington & Lee v. State of Oklahoma (Oklahoma); Padgett v. State of Florida (reversed on procedural grounds), Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, and Castellanos v. Next Door Company(Florida).

The United States Department of Labor in coordination with OSHA have finally “discovered” that employee misclassification and wage theft are rampant, and that the cost-shifting externalization of care for injured workers is as poisonous as it is pervasive.

Perhaps most fundamentally, ProPublica, bolstered by the imprimatur and audience of NPR, has created a national conversation and awareness of the oppressed plight of injured workers with its feature The Demolition of Workers’ Compensation which exposed to the public domain the travesty and arbitrary injustice we slog through on a daily basis.

If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want. -Karl Popper

Continual, constructive self-assessment of our organizational efforts is indispensable to the accomplishment of our mission. Are we really doing the best job possible and are we succeeding to our complete potential?

Governors in the traditionally blue states of California and New York have signed away the long term financial security of millions of families of injured workers while Texas and Oklahoma have essentially jettisoned workers’ compensation benefits, allowing indifferent employers to Bail-Out of their responsibility to provide for the safety and security of working families. Further corporate front group Bail-Out initiatives are fermenting in the legislatures of Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.

In my view, the state workers’ compensation system is in its most dire situation in at least the last half-century. -Prof John F. Burton, Jr.

Professor Burton is clearly referencing only the perspective of the injured worker and not the immense wealth of the $85 billion insurance industry where insurance carriers now earn $6.20 in profits for every $100 of net premiums; and, private employers on average pay only 44 cents per hour for each employee to be provided with coverage.

Empirical evidence reliably demonstrates that each reduction in benefits to an injured workers’ family subsequent to “reform” has not translated into lower premiums for small business but primarily in greater profit for the self-insureds and the insurance industry. From 2007 to 2012, workers’ compensation benefits and costs per $100 of payroll were lower than at any time over the last three decades, while insurance company investment profits in 2011, 2012, and preliminarily for 2013, have topped 14% annually.

According to OSHA, workers’ compensation benefits now cover only 21% of workers’ compensation liabilities-shifting 79% of the true cost to others, including the injured workers’ family and taxpayers-while our firsthand knowledge demonstrates the inadequacy of current benefit levels and the injustice of the AMA Guides, ODG Treatment Guidelines, Primary Cause, Medical Formularies and the literal evaporation of effective vocational rehabilitation for those injured workers who have lost access to their prior occupation.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. -1 Corinthians 15:58

I believe it will be the exponential participation of you, the existing member, which fosters our mission as much as the sheer addition of new members. The existential purpose of the organization must always be vigorous and exigent advocacy, not just growth and the collection plate. We must collect accomplishments, not only numbers.

Together we can do that, but we must have an active outreach program that communicates to the public, to the media and to state legislators the value of workers’ compensation and the cost of its failure. If business can focus-group a new Doritos flavor, I am confident we can use a similar approach identifying crux “reptile” talking points, plus distilling and building upon the points raised in the ProPublica series to focus our messaging.”

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