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| | Ouch! Workers' Compensation Negotiations in California Hit a Glitch. No Deal. Schwarzenegger's Deadline Missed Again. By John Franklin - March 28, 2004A Workers' Comp overhaul deal was not made on Friday as the so-called "Big Five" couldn't pull it together, missing Gov. Schwarzenegger's self-imposed deadline--the second deadline the legislative commmittee has missed. The first missed deadline was on March 1st.
The Big Five consists of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and four top legislative leaders: Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield).
"We do not have a deal," a dour-looking Jim Brulte said as he came out of an hourlong meeting in the governor's office. He ticked off a list of major issues with the $22-billion Workers' Compensation system that remain unresolved. They include:
- How to gauge what portion of a worker's injury is job related.
- How to calculate benefits for partial disabilities--such as strained backs.
- How to determine the proper medical treatments for specific injuries.
The hot topic of regulating insurance rates didn't come up in Friday's session, Brulte said.
So unproductive were the closed-door talks that the Senate's top Democrat, President Pro Tem John Burton of San Francisco, stormed out of the room and cooled his heels reading magazines in the governor's office until it was time to face a band of reporters lying in wait, according to sources close to the negotiations.
The talks, though stalled, are not extinguished. The next meeting has been scheduled for 6:00 P.M. tonight, Sunday.
John Burton blamed Friday's set-back on overly optimistic expectations among statehouse insiders that a compromise was on the table. He also suggested that legislative staff and their bosses might have misunderstood one another about the details of proposed reforms. He further stated that the dispute boiled down to the basic philosophical difference between the two parties.
"We want to make sure that injured workers get their just desserts," he said. Republicans, on the other hand, "are concerned... that injured workers are getting unjust enrichments." |