The workers’ compensation system is supposed to provide sure and certain relief for injured workers. But it has an appeals process that is time consuming, confusing and frustrating for injured workers waiting to receive their benefits.

Making matters worse, employers who are appealing a claim, or their third-party administrator, can contact an injured worker’s physician without the worker’s knowledge or the knowledge of their attorney and obtain information prejudicial to the appeal.

Based on the principle that workers should not lose the right to privacy because of a workplace injury, the WSLC supported HB 1402. Known as the ex parte communication bill, it restricts the ability of employers appealing workers’ compensation claims from contacting and pressuring the medical providers of the injured workers.

HB 1402 passed the House 55-42 (see House Vote #2) and the Senate 2918 (see Senate Vote #6), and was signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

This year, a Department of Labor and Industries review of Retrospective Rating Programs -- which was initiated by a legislative request for information -- uncovered a computer glitch causing $10-15 million per year in overpayments of workers’ compensation refunds to Retro programs.

Would this revelation prompt some long-overdue legislative scrutiny of the controversial Retro program? Would the public be allowed to learn exactly how Retro refunds are calculated? Would we find out how refunds are delivered to employers and how much is skimmed from the system by employer groups? And most importantly, would we get the information necessary to find out if this costly program really achieves its goal of safer workplaces, or instead, if it is artificially keeping all Washington employers’ premiums higher than they need be?

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) introduced SB 6035, touted as a "Retro sunshine bill," to create some public scrutiny of the program in hopes of answering those questions. The bill would have required the business groups that profit from the Retro program to disclose how much of participating employers’ refunds are given to those employers and how much is being kept by the business group (to be spent on political campaigns and other purposes). It placed no restrictions on how much business groups could skim or how they spend it. It just sought public disclosure.

Despite a Senate floor debate on SB 6035 that included wild accusations of "political payback" and gross distortions of what this bill actually did, it squeaked through, 25-24 (see Senate Vote #5).

But the House was a different story. The bill passed two different committees, but House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) refused to bring it to the floor for a vote and it died. After the session, the Building Industry Association of Washington, which runs the single largest Retro program -- and has turned it into a notorious cash cow for aggressive political spending -- bragged that its "excellent relations with legislators from both sides of the political aisle" killed this and other legislation it opposed.

At some point, legislators must come to grips with the fact that a multi-million dollar worker safety program has become so ingrained in election politics that it is invulnerable not only to reform, but even to public disclosure.

Several labor-supported bills affecting building and construction workers passed in 2009 -- largely on party-line votes with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing the bills. They included:

Among the building and construction trades bills that did not pass (but will be back next year):

For more detailed information about these and other 2009 bills, see the 2009 Legislative Review of the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO at www.wabuildingtrades.org.