Rallies Planned Over Cuts in Workers’ Comp

A new group that wants to become a force in the debate over California’s workers’ compensation system is staging a series of rallies around the state today to protest cuts in benefits for injured employees.

The organization, named after its WorkersInjuredatWork .org website, which also launches today, hopes to draw members from the approximately 1 million Californians injured on the job each year -- although organizers concede that they’re unsure how many will show up for the protests.

“I don’t intend this to be an organization that simply has a lunch and a protest and is gone for a year,” said Director Peggy Sugarman, a former top regulator for the state Division of Workers’ Compensation. “It’s time injured workers had their own voice.”

Organizers acknowledge that the group will be hard-pressed to reverse the overhaul of the workers’ comp system orchestrated last spring by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some injured workers say the overhaul is depriving them of medical treatment and financial benefits.

“It’s going to be difficult because we’ve been beat up by both the Democrats and Republicans,” said Mark Hayes, a disabled Orange County court reporter who is president of the workers group. “But we’re not special interests. We’re voters.”

Business and insurance industry groups dismiss the organization as a front for the California Applicants’ Attorneys Assn., the lawyers who represent victims of workplace accidents.

“They’re protecting their pocketbooks and using injured workers to do it,” said Nichole Mahrt, a spokeswoman for the American Insurance Assn. in Sacramento.

Indeed, applicants’ attorneys have provided the workers’ group with start-up funding, confirmed David Schwartz, president of the attorney association.

Simultaneous rallies were scheduled at 18 offices of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board in downtown Los Angeles, Long Beach, Van Nuys, Santa Ana, Anaheim and elsewhere around the state. A separate demonstration is set for the Fresno office of state Sen. Charles Poochigian, the Republican author of last year’s workers’ compensation bill.

A Democratic campaign specialist said the creation of a lobbying group for injured workers could make the intricacies of workers’ compensation law more meaningful to the average voter.

“It’s a very compelling argument to make when you focus on the actual human consequences of public policy,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic political consultant in Los Angeles.

He said the injured-workers organization could have an effect on the Legislature, particularly if it could find common ground with small-business owners who have yet to see significant relief from skyrocketing workers’ comp premiums -- a key selling point of last year’s overhaul.

The creation of the group could set the tone for a third straight year of political combat between labor organizations and employers over the best way to fix the state’s troubled system for aiding workplace accident victims.

Although a series of laws passed over the last 18 months has modestly lowered business owners’ costs, the reductions have yet to compensate for rates that jumped as much as 300% in the early 1990s.