Comment by Fred Up
SYDNEY — On December 3, the final package of the state Labor government's workers' compensation "reforms" passed through the upper house. State attorney general Jeff Shaw's package, including 25% cuts to lump sum compensation payouts, was passed in its original form after an opposition amendment blocking an exemption for coal miners was overturned after a four-day miners' strike.
The Carr government cited a $454 million deficit in the Workcover insurance scheme as rationale for the cuts. Despite an increase in premiums from an average 1.8% to 2.8% of payrolls in the last two years, Workcover is being bled dry, claims the government.
The culprits: greedy lawyers and doctors and the last Liberal government, which kept premiums artificially low. There's no mention of unscrupulous employers who allow hazardous workplaces, or Workcover's poor record in enforcing safety legislation.
Shaw stated that 2.5% of payrolls would be a satisfactory level for premiums, but didn't mention enforcement of legislation to minimise injury to workers. The "solution" is to slash workers' benefits. The aim of the "reforms" is to cut costs, not protect workers.
Now the package has been passed, where does compensation stand? Employer premiums should come down, thus directly allowing company accountants to show that it's cheaper to pay out injury claims than provide a safer workplace through expensive upgrading of plant and machinery. Workcover inspectors will still be rarely seen and then only to issue minor penalty notices, preferring to "encourage" employers to implement health and safety measures rather than impose hefty fines.
Workcover will now act as an "independent" mediator, conciliating between workers and insurance companies over disputed claims — in other words, encouraging workers to accept smaller immediate payouts rather than go through lengthy and costly court cases with insurance companies and their batteries of lawyers.
Medical panels will be used to determine the level of incapacity of injured workers when insurance doctors and workers' medical advice differ. Elsewhere this has resulted in virtually all incapacity claims being reduced to the minimum percentage level to minimise payouts and exclude most pain and suffering claims. A limited appeal procedure is allowed through a court case.
Workers will get a 25% cut to maximum payouts for permanent injury; a near 25% cut to payouts for two or more permanent injuries; and a $16,200 cut to maximum payments for pain and suffering. Insurance companies will be able to stop weekly payments to injured workers after two years, if they believe the incapacity is not serious or the worker hasn't attempted rehabilitation. To obtain reinstatement of benefits, the worker must take the insurance company to court — where do they get the money for that?
Workers can also have permanent lump sum payments reduced if the injured part was partly damaged prior to the work injury creating permanent damage. An attempt to make employers pay the first two weeks of compensation failed in the upper house, so they still have to pay only the first $500.
And what has the union bureaucrats' response been? Muted concern that the cuts are too harsh, yet acceptance that the scheme was in trouble. They haven't attacked Labor for selling out workers to keep bosses' premiums down, or attacked the real culprit — capitalist greed. No mass protests, no industrial action apart from the miners, who attacked the upper house for not allowing their exemption and then went back to work when they won it back.
The Laborites in the CFMEU said they will get the employers to pay increased top-up insurance — the old scheme to appease workers' anger when Labor Premier Barry Unsworth sold workers out in 1987 when the right to common law remedies for injured workers was removed.
The industrially strong unions have attempted to dampen membership anger and support their mates in the Labor Party. The only real losers, as always, have been the workers. A workers' government would impose hefty fines and jail negligent employers. It would protect workers' health and safety, not employers' profits.
Wake up, educate and organise!