Injured Worker Group Making Progress But Facing Some Struggles
By Steve Lawrence, Associated Press Writer - March 21, 2005SACRAMENTO (AP) _ Mark Hayes' cell phone is busy these days with calls from workers who have suffered job-related injuries. They see his name in the newspaper and find some way to track him down.
"They want to tell you their story; they need some place to vent," said Hayes, who hopes to provide those workers with political clout as well as a sympathetic ear.
Hayes, a former Orange County court reporter who has had his own work-related injuries, is president of Voters Injured at Work, a new group that is trying to organize injured workers into a potent lobbying force.
The group is an outgrowth of the sweeping changes that the state has made in its workers' compensation system since the fall of 2003, changes that labor unions, workers' attorneys and some doctors contend have harmed injured workers.
"There was simply no balance left in the system." says Peggy Sugarman, a former chief deputy director of the state Division of Workers' Compensation who came up with the idea of forming Voters Injured At Work. She's now the group's executive director.
Groups representing employers and workers' comp insurers say Hayes' organization is just a front group for workers' attorneys, part of a strategy by the California Applicants' Attorneys Association to attack the workers' comp overhaul through workers.
"VIAW seems to be one way to get one degree of distance from their organization," says Jerry Azevedo, a spokesman for the Workers' Compensation Action Network, a coalition of employers and insurers. "At least as yet there is no degree of separation."
The applicants' attorneys have provided VIAW with $80,000 in seed money to get up and running and have offered another $20,000. But VIAW is an independent group run by a board made up of injured workers and the widow of an injured worker, Sugarman said.
The fact that the group is actively recruiting injured workers as members and charging them dues also undercuts the front group accusation, but employers and insurers will keep making that claim "because it's a mantra they feel works," she added.
VIAW's leaders say their success in recruiting injured workers has been better than they expected. More than 800 people have signed up and over 600 have paid the $25 in annual dues since the nonprofit organization announced its existence at a series of press conferences in mid-January.
"It looks like they are coming in at about 20 checks a day," said Sugarman.
But getting members out to organizational meetings has been more difficult. Only five, including a member of the group's board of directors, showed up for a recent meeting in Sacramento.
"I'm kind of scratching my head about what does it take to get people out there," Sugarman said. "Whether people have trouble because they don't have money to drive, or don't have cars, don't have computers or don't check their e-mails."
One of the injured workers who attended the Sacramento meeting, Lisa Thorpe, said finding out about Voters Injured at Work "was like a godsend."
"I thought, 'Oh my God, I've got to contact these people,'" she said. "I've been through hell and back again through workers' compensation, and it's starting all over again for me now with the new laws changing."
The Fairfield resident has been receiving laser treatments to deaden the pain from a back injury she suffered when she slipped on a wet, soapy floor while working as a restaurant kitchen manager in 1998 in Redding.
It had been taking about two weeks to get her workers' comp insurer to authorize the treatments. But it took five months to get permission the last time around under the new utilization review procedures adopted by lawmakers, Thorpe said.
She's hoping VIAW can convince lawmakers to roll back the changes they made.
Angie Wei, a lobbyist for the California Labor Federation, says Voters Injured at Work can fill an "important niche.''
"Often times for injured workers it's an awfully lonely fight against insurance companies for denying their benefits," she said. "They need an advocate and this organization can be a collective advocate for injured workers."
Besides the applicants' attorneys, doctors have contributed about $5,000 in seed money, and VIAW is also making money by selling T-shirts and hats, Sugarman said.
The group has a Web site that is linked to some labor group sites, is putting together a newsletter and is working on a rally in April to mark the anniversary of the enactment of the workers' comp legislation pushed through last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It's also one of the plaintiffs, along with applicants' attorneys, in a lawsuit challenging Schwarzenegger administration regulations that critics say will result in big benefit cuts for disabled workers.
Hayes says it will take time for the group to gain respect and clout but he thinks it can become a potent force in California politics.
"We have to establish some credibility," he said. "There have been a lot of groups that have been started to help injured workers, but they just have not done it. Until we can actually show them we're different and we're going to keep on growing, we won't have that credibility. It just takes time."
| 
__May11th2017.gif)
.gif)