Wilson Asks 1-Day OK of Workers’ Comp Bill : Legislation: Governor demands that lawmakers bypass hearings on reform proposal, saying issue ‘has been heard and reheard.’

A combative Gov. Pete Wilson demanded Thursday that the Democratic-dominated Legislature next week bypass normal hearings and enact his version of workers’ compensation reform in a single day.

“This is not new ground. We have been over it and over it and over it,” Wilson said. “This has been heard and reheard. What has been lacking is action.”

Wilson, who last week vetoed a Democratic package of bills to overhaul the state’s ailing $12-billion system for compensating injured workers, issued the demand at a news conference where he announced details of the reform bill he will send to a rare pre-election special session next Thursday.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) have defended the workers’ comp program that Wilson vetoed as the Legislature’s best response to resolve the issue.

They indicated that committees will be appointed to consider workers’ comp legislation but that no program likely would be enacted before the Nov. 3 election. In the meantime, most lawmakers are expected to return to their campaigns.

Wilson’s new plan, which he said earlier would be all but non-negotiable, appeared to be a fine-tuned version of a Republican-sponsored program that was killed by Democrats in August.

The Democratic and GOP proposals had envisioned insurance premium savings to employers of more than $1 billion a year and would have increased benefits to injured workers. While reflecting many similarities, the two programs differed in the fine print details of how to achieve the cost savings.

The Democratic plan would have allowed greater scope for filing claims for mental stress and would have placed limits on funds to rehabilitate injured workers. The Republican plan would have eliminated rehabilitation programs.

On one hand, the existing employer-financed California workers’ comp insurance system is almost universally recognized as astronomically overpriced for recession-battered businesses. On the other, its benefits to injured employees are considered grossly inadequate.

Each of the major economic interests involved in workers’ comp has drawn blame for a system that has eluded reform for years. The interests include attorneys who represent workers, forensic physicians who evaluate physical and stress injuries, insurance companies who provide the coverage, worker rehabilitation consultants who counsel employees and the lawyers who defend employers against worker claims.

Brown and other Democrats have branded the special session called by the governor a naked political maneuver aimed at attempting to divert Democrats away from their campaigns as Wilson tries to marshal support from employers and parlay it into Republican control of the Assembly.

“Do I apologize for using the leverage of an election to focus attention (on the issue)?” Wilson rhetorically asked reporters. “I do not apologize.”

Using a box factory in Sacramento as a backdrop, Wilson said the legislators could enact his plan next Thursday, or Friday at the latest, and be back in their districts campaigning for election.

“If they don’t want it to be an issue, take it off the table,” the governor said of his program. “Pass the reform. It’s that simple.”

Not so, said Jimmy Lewis, press secretary to Brown. He said Wilson seemingly “wants to dictate” the terms of reform on behalf of employers while preventing testimony from “the most important party, the injured workers.”

Wilson is scheduled to start a series of statewide “forums” with employers today in the districts of targeted Assembly Democrats to build support for his workers’ comp legislation and the election of more Republicans.

The governor said he will tell the business executives that not only is their economic future and the jobs of their workers at stake in the outcome of his bill but so should the jobs of “your elected representatives also ride and fall upon whether they are capable of acting on your behalf.”

In the highly controversial and costly area of stress claims, Wilson would eliminate the law that allows an employee to receive compensation if it can be shown that at least 10% of his or her stress was related to work. The vetoed Democratic plan would have raised the level to at least 51%.