AND WHO DO YOU THINK IS PAYING FOR THAT NOW?
By Louis Vigorita
3/23/07
Most of you, if you're like me, look at your paychecks and wonder where all that Social Security withholding is going. Retired Uncle Bob. Disabled Veterans. Orphans. Even your very own retirement future, etc! But how many of you realize that some of your hard earned Social Security money is now being used to support a select group of people who should be working in full time jobs? How many of you realize that Workers who are injured on the job are no longer assisted in returning to modified work and have been placed on the disability rolls of the permanently disabled? Through no fault of their own! Probably no one realizes this unless you have been involved in the Governor's Workers Compensation reforms over the past few years.
Formerly, injured workers in the State of California were eligible for a benefit known as Vocational rehabilitation under Labor Code 139. If injured and unable to return to their usual and customary occupation, they were then retrained at the expense of the Workers Compensation Insurance Company. Upon completion of their program they were to return to some form of modified work using their newfound skills. They simply were to return to full time work. Earning wages. Paying taxes. The usual stuff that the rest of us have to do. The Workers Compensation Insurance Carrier paid for this as part of the return to work program under the Workers Compensation Laws of California. The employer paid for the premiums for his workers who were injured on the job while performing the job duties that made money for the employer. John Q public did not pay for this. None of this. It was a cost of doing business to help return the injured worker to the wage earning and taxpaying world. This was the situation before April19, 2004.
Now enter the reform Governor and his SB899 reform package at the request of the insurance lobby. Yes at the request of the powerful insurance lobby. In this reform the injured workers rights under Labor Code139 were essentially eviscerated. There is no retraining following serious injuries that prevent workers from returning to their jobs. There is no financial support during a school program designed to get the worker back into the work force as soon as possible. There is no counseling to assist in preparing the worker for job interviews nay guide them how to dress and conduct themselves through the new job search. No effort is made to assist the injured worker in getting back to work. So the injured worker, due to his or her debilitating injury, while able to work in some modified capacity with a little training, is unable to do so. There is no more training and assistance that in the past was a proven way of expeditiously returning workers to the work force. Instead, we have a myriad of cases with untrained, injured workers who have lost their jobs with no prospects nor useable skills. And most of these people we see in Ventura County are hardworking farm workers who have little if any English speaking skills. Think of the group of workers recently displaced in the winter frost of 2007. What do they do now?
First of all, they become eligible for a federally mandated program known as Social Security Disability, which is an early retirement program. Social Security Disability benefits a worker who meets certain criteria. He needs to have paid his taxes, worked a certain number of quarters and "...be unable to perform substantial gainful activity..." in order to qualify. With no retraining under California law these injured workers become unemployable and therefore easily eligible for Social Security Disability at a time in their lives when they normally would be productive, taxpaying individuals. But having lost their Vocational rehabilitation, they now are unable to work at any level. Think of a non-English speaking farm worker who cannot use his back to work and is limited to sedentary work. What work in the national economy is he able to perform on a full time basis following a devastating back injury? None. So he collects Social Security that you and I pay for with our federal tax dollars.
Why should we pay for this disability injury that was formerly covered under Workers Compensation insurance? Why shouldn't the Workers Compensation insurance pay for this workers plight instead of us? Why do Californians have to burden this additional expense? Why was this Vocational Rehabilitation law repealed? These are valid questions that the Governor failed to address when he signed SB899 into law on April 19, 2004 and that have come to haunt us now.
