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Washington Ledge: Injured Worker at Gregoire Workers' Comp Pow-Wow
Over at his Washington Ledge blog,
Public radio's Austin Jenkins reports on a stakeholders meeting on workers' compensation reform at Governor Christine Gregoire's office on Friday.
The workers' comp issue has bogged down budget negotiations in the special session, threatening to send it into double overtime. Republicans and conservative Democrats want to change the workers' comp system so there's a lump sum settlement option rather than strictly mandating ongoing settlement payments.
At at the behest of a GOP/Democratic alliance, the senate passed a lump sum bill. The liberal house won't bite, but centrist Rep. Deb Eddy (D-48, Bellevue) has led the charge in negotiating a compromise . ( In an email to PubliCola earlier this month, she said only the house Democratic leadership was holding up reform by treating the inclusion of a settlement option as an "armageddon.")
The governor has since offered a compromise restricting the lump sum deal to older workers who are on the verge of retirement.
The usual stakeholders showed up at the governor's stakeholders' meeting, Jenkins explains—two representatives from Boeing, the Association of Washington Businesses, the Washington State Association for Justice, and the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) — and then there was an actual injured worker, a beneficiary of the state's current system.
From the Washington Ledge:
Marquardt's lifelong debilitating injury is exactly the type of case where reform opponents argue a onetime settlement option would be detrimental to the interests of the worker.
The Stand , the WSLC's labor-centric news site, follows up on Marquardt's surprise appearance with a video, and asks, "Is this momentous decision on workers’ compensation one that should be made in haste at the end of special extended session, as the entire state budget is held hostage?"
The workers' comp issue has bogged down budget negotiations in the special session, threatening to send it into double overtime. Republicans and conservative Democrats want to change the workers' comp system so there's a lump sum settlement option rather than strictly mandating ongoing settlement payments.
At at the behest of a GOP/Democratic alliance, the senate passed a lump sum bill. The liberal house won't bite, but centrist Rep. Deb Eddy (D-48, Bellevue) has led the charge in negotiating a compromise . ( In an email to PubliCola earlier this month, she said only the house Democratic leadership was holding up reform by treating the inclusion of a settlement option as an "armageddon.")
The governor has since offered a compromise restricting the lump sum deal to older workers who are on the verge of retirement.
The usual stakeholders showed up at the governor's stakeholders' meeting, Jenkins explains—two representatives from Boeing, the Association of Washington Businesses, the Washington State Association for Justice, and the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) — and then there was an actual injured worker, a beneficiary of the state's current system.
From the Washington Ledge:
All the usual suspects showed up ... except one. In the place of WSLC president Jeff Johnson, in rolled a man named Steve Marquardt in his wheelchair.
“She didn't have to lie down on a fainting couch or anything," jokes Marquardt about the governor’s reaction.
Karina Shagren, a governor's spokesperson, says in an email that Marquardt "was a surprise attendee [at the meeting] ... the governor was not aware he was attending." The Labor Council had given the governor's staff Marquardt's name, but apparently didn't mention his background.
In 1987, Marquardt was paralyzed from the waist down in a logging accident near Spokane - he fell more than 60 feet when the branches he was anchored to broke. He has now become a vocal opponent of "lump sum" settlements for permanently injured workers who are not able to return to the workforce.
Marquardt's lifelong debilitating injury is exactly the type of case where reform opponents argue a onetime settlement option would be detrimental to the interests of the worker.
The Stand , the WSLC's labor-centric news site, follows up on Marquardt's surprise appearance with a video, and asks, "Is this momentous decision on workers’ compensation one that should be made in haste at the end of special extended session, as the entire state budget is held hostage?"
