SUNDAY MAIL : ARTICLE
by Janet Giles

2 March 2008

Imagine losing a limb.  Or your child becoming a paraplegic.  A loved one being killed on the job.  In a perfect world nobody should get injured or die at work, but while workers continue to be asked to do dangerous things in dangerous workplaces, work injury is a fact of life.  That's why we need a good system that compensates workers and helps them recover so they can get back to work quickly and safely.

As a community we have relied on the union movement and the Labor party for fair safety and workers compensation laws that protect the rights of working families.  We are therefore justifiably outraged that a Labor Premier, Mike Rann, wants to slash the pay of injured workers by 20% if they are still hurt after 13 weeks and cut off support completely after two and a half years.  He argues WorkCover is in financial strife, yet at the same time he wants to give employers, who are responsible for the injuries in the first place, a financial windfall - lower levy payments.

Premier Rann is hurting the working families who elected him in his eagerness to please the big business lobby.  It's too reminiscent of WorkChoices and that's why unions in SA have vowed to campaign against these laws, just as we did for the past three years in the Your Rights at Work Campaign.  Rann is fooling no-one with claims that we will still have the best scheme in Australia.  Next he'll echo Howard's rhetoric and say that injured workers have never been better off!

Standing up for working families is our job.  Mr Rann is ignoring the concerns of injured workers - but well ensure he hears their voices through the community.  We will be running paid advertising, talking to people in the suburbs and now targeting key Labor seats.  We want members of Parliament to face their own constituents and tell them how they will cope with their mortgage on 20% less pay and why they think it is OK to slash workers pay to increase business profits.

Yes, we agree that the financial position of WorkCover needs improving, but Kevin Foley and Martin Hamilton-Smith are both using scare tactics to push their own agenda.  Economists will tell you it's not another state bank and doesn't affect our AAA rating.  The Liberals left eh scheme in a mess in 2002 and that's why we sat on the Board for the last 6 years to help get it back on track.  We sacked most of the senior staff, appointed a new CEO, reviewed all WorkCover operations, reduced legal costs and brought in a new agent with a focus on returning people to work.  It's now on the way to being fully funded by 2013 but too many people are still not able to get back to work quickly and safely.

The Rann plan is to starve injured workers back to work by cutting their pay, even if they haven't recovered.  There are other more humane ways to achieving the same result.  In WorkCover there are many groups who contribute to the problem.  Our ideas include :

• Spot fines for employers with unsafe workplaces, more workplace inspectors with stronger powers, and a stronger focus injury prevention.

• Strong financial penalties for employers who delay claims.

• Strong financial penalties for employers who refuse to take injured workers back to work.

• Financial incentives for employers who are willing to employ other people's injured workers.

• Investment in the re-training of injured workers in areas where they are better suited.

• Establishing a special priority project involving all stakeholders that focuses on those currently on the scheme for over three years.

• A WorkCover Ombudsman with strong powers of investigation of complaints about agents, lawyers, medical and rehabilitation providers, worker and employer behaviour when it works against safe and quick return to work, backed up with penalties for all these groups enshrined in the law.

Our biggest fear is that the bully boy tactics of Rann, Foley and Conlon will ultimately make the system worse as they push through a law for political purposes rather than listening to those who know the problems, who have constructive solutions to WorkCover's structural challenges, and are genuinely interested in helping to get people back to work safely and fairly.