Union Leaders Call For Restoration of Workers Comp Benefits
By Cyndi Roy for the State House News Service
       Fourteen years after lawmakers overhauled workers compensation laws, labor leaders were back on Beacon Hill Wednesday urging legislators to restore some of the worker benefits cut as a result of rampant abuse and fraud, and skyrocketing premiums.
       “Workers’ compensation is simply not working for the workers of Massachusetts,” AFL-CIO Massachusetts President Robert Haynes told members of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee. Union officials say the 1991 reforms that reduced benefits and lowered premiums for businesses have made it exceedingly difficult for legitimately injured workers to collect adequate compensation.
       All Massachusetts businesses are required have workers’ compensation insurance to protect their employees from expenses associated with on-the-job injuries. Specifically, labor leaders are pushing legislation that would allow judges to extend the length of worker benefits, expand death and disfigurement compensation, and allow individuals to sue companies that misclassify workers or fail to carry the state-mandated insurance policies.
       Joseph Dart, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council AFL-CIO, told committee members that workers compensation costs total 70 to 80 percent of payroll costs for some high-risk businesses. Passing a law that would allow individuals to sue companies that illegally forego the insurance would level the playing field for those companies that do adhere to the statute, he said.
       “This is critically important for our industry,” he said. “It allows us to go after those that are skirting the system.”
       Business leaders also support the proposal, which would allow 10 individuals to file a suit against a company not carrying the insurance.
       But business leaders and representatives from the insurance industry are hesitant to restore workers’ compensation benefits. They worry that increasing certain benefit levels will prompt a return to an era when the system was riddled by fraudulent claims and abuse at the expense of insurers and employers. Business leaders also worry they’ll be forced to pay more to protect their workers.