Colorado AFL-CIO president Bob Greene says labor hasn't yet decided whether to throw its support behind the proposed amendment. But he warns that if the legislature continues to restrict benefits for injured workers, labor will put something very similar to the Safe Work Environment amendment on the 1998 ballot.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's time to get rid of the system," Greene says. "The mean-spirited attitude of that legislature toward injured workers is unbelievable. They have no conscience. We think industry wants to eliminate their liability [for injuries] but continue their immunity from lawsuits. Our members would be better off going to a judge and jury."
The amendment's proponents are still working on the proposal, and it's unclear if they'll try to get it on the ballot this year. But the idea is already alarming Colorado employers. "It would be a deterrent for businesses to come here and stay here," says CACI's George Dibble. "The employer would have to pay the expense of getting employees back to work and to defend themselves in court." Dibble insists the workers' compensation system is still working well for both injured workers and employers, and he vows to fight the proposed initiative every step of the way.
Although there has been periodic talk of a grand compromise on the workers' comp issue between business and labor, those efforts have so far come to naught. Most of the lawmakers who approved the 1991 law still believe it was the right thing to do. "The workers' compensation rates have dropped substantially," says House Majority Leader Tim Foster, who helped push through the new law. "It's been a success. We still pay substantially better benefits than most surrounding states. Is it a perfect system? The answer is no. But it's as fair as the system can afford."
Colorado was one of the first states to slash workers' compensation benefits, a move that prompted the Wall Street Journal in 1992 to describe Colorado as a major testing ground for an insurance-industry push to reduce its liability. But in the past few years almost every other state in the country has followed Colorado's lead. Most of Colorado's neighbors have also slashed benefits, and today Kansas and Utah pay substantially lower benefits than Colorado. Even highly industrialized states like New York and California, which traditionally have had the most generous workers' compensation packages, are now offering awards that in some cases are lower than Colorado's.
"It's a nationwide phenomenon, but we were in the forefront of that," says Peter Strauss, director of the western regional office of the National Council on Compensation Insurance, a research group that serves the insurance industry. "A tremendous number of states have changed their laws."
Strauss insists that prior to 1991, awards for permanent total disability were out of control in Colorado. "We were running a 9 percent permanent total disability rate," he says. "That was ridiculous. The national average was 2 to 3 percent. Now you've knocked out a good number of the highest cost benefits. You've knocked a good portion of the permanent total disability cases down to permanent partial disability. We've restructured the system so only people who are truly permanently and totally disabled are getting benefits."
But in fact, injured employees and their advocates argue, the system has been restructured so that workers no longer get their fair share. They say Colorado's workers' compensation system is now biased against them and has been designed simply to save money--with little regard for people who've lost their livelihood. "For people truly in need, the laws are totally against you and for the company," Eli says. "It's frustrating and aggravating, and it makes me mad as hell."
Eli was offered a job as a reservations clerk for United Airlines but says she had to pass it up because of her carpal tunnel syndrome. She knows she won't be able to work in a deli again. She says she asked King Soopers if she could work at the customer service desk at a lower rate of pay, but the company refused to consider the idea. "They tell people, 'We've used you up and you're hurt, so get out of here,'" she says. "People aren't aware of what's happening to the people who are truly hurt.
