Workers’ Comp Bill OKd by Senate

In the first legislative effort this year to overhaul the troubled workers’ compensation system, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved an admittedly incomplete package of proposed remedies.

Democrats and Republicans agreed that the action represented only a first step in a long and tortuous process. The aim is to write a compromise that is acceptable not only to Gov. Pete Wilson but to widely divergent interests affected by the issue.

The program, which compensates workers for employment-related injuries, has drawn heavy fire for chasing businesses and jobs out of California to states where employer premiums are less costly. At the same time, worker benefits are among the lowest in the country, critics charge.

Although the bipartisan four-bill package went to the Assembly with only one dissenting vote, Republicans and Democrats voiced only guarded hope that a reform of the $12 billion-a-year program will be achieved this legislative session.