NCATL drops official bank over workers' compensation reform
The N. C. Academy of Trial Lawyers has ended its longtime relationship with its offical bank over the issue of workers' compensation reform.
The Academy, whose membership includes more than 4,000 attorneys dedicated to protecting individual rights in North Carolina, instead has chosen SunTrust as its official bank.
Insurance lobbying groups and big companies, including Duke Energy, Progress Energy and Bank of America, are the major backers of an effort to change the state's Workers' Compensation Act in ways that would severely compromise workers' rights.
Among other things, these groups and corporations supported legislation that would have imposed a 500-week (or approximately 10-year) limit on workers' compensation benefits. Under their plan, workers who are older than 60 could only collect benefits for 260 weeks - or about five years - no matter how debilitating or severe their injuries.
Their efforts are aimed at saving big businesses money at the expense of taxpayers. They seek to transfer the cost of caring for injured workers to taxpayers and the already overburdened federal Social Security system.
In legislation last year, the pro-reform faction proposed other unnecessary changes to the state's workers' compensation system:
· They sought to give employers 90 days rather than 14, the current standard, to decide whether to accept or deny a claim.
· Under their preferred plan, employers could deny a worker's claim if he turns down "employment within his physical limitations," even if that new job pays a much lower wage or is unsuitable for other reasons.
· Their plan would also give employers more unfettered access to patients' medical records, a clear invasion of privacy.
· Employees who refuse to be tested for drugs or alcohol after an accident would automatically be denied workers' comp under the reformers' plan.
The impacts of such changes are wide-ranging, and they could affect every category of employee, from production workers to medical professionals.
This is not just a blue-collar issue. Each year, more than 60,000 North Carolinians with work-related injuries file to cover medical costs and recoup lost wages. Workers collected $1.5 billion in benefits owed them last year.
Small businesses have been deluded into believing that they'll save money if the workers' compensation rules are changed in North Carolina. California reformed its workers' comp system after the election of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The value of benefits paid has dropped by 50 percent. But workers' compensation insurance premiums paid by small employers have dropped only 15 percent.
Insurance companies, not small businesses, are profiting from reform.
In regards to cost, N.C. companies pay less for workers' comp insurance and pay lower average claims than businesses in other states.
N.C. companies pay workers' compensation insurance premiums of just $2.32 per $100 of payroll, according to a state-by-state comparison by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services. The national average is $2.65 per $100 of payroll. The highest premiums are in California ($6.08 per $100 of payroll) and in Alaska ($4.39 per $100 of payroll).
In addition, a national study conducted in 2004 by the Workers' Compensation Research Institute in Cambridge, Mass., showed that the total cost per workers' comp claim in North Carolina is just $2,373, 9 percent below the median of the all the states studied.
But when compared to other states, North Carolina workers already must wait longer to receive benefits that are owed to them, according to WCRI. The study found that 36 percent of injured workers in North Carolina received their first workers' compensation payment within 21 days of being injured. Backers of reform would have injured workers wait even longer for benefits that are owed them.