Do you ever get frustrated with California’s workers’ compensation system?  Do you get angry with the ongoing litigation and the ever increasing attorneys’ fees?  What about the way the system turns mildly injured employees into completely system-dependent non-workers, relying on their lawyers to continue pumping unnecessary benefits out of employers and insurers?

Well, if you are frustrated by this and more, there are only so many things you can do.  One option, of a somewhat limited effect, is to start a blog and rant into the internet (you get to meet a lot of nice people that way, actually).  Another, of course, is to bend the ear of the Department of Industrial relations, and tell them: “Now see HERE!”

What’s that? You don’t think the DIR cares what you have to say?  Well, you couldn’t be more wrong – “The Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) will hold a series of public meetings across the state to provide open forum discussions on the current issues in workers’ compensation and to gather information from stakeholders and members of the public on suggestions for improvements.”

So if you are in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Bernadino, La Mesa, or Oakland (oddly, not San Francisco), don’t miss your chance to attend one of these quasi-town hall meetings.  If your ever-busy blogger can slip away from his desk for a few hours, he will try to sit in on the one in Oakland.  Would anyone care to meet me there?

Testimony will be limited to 3 minutes per speaker, unless the speaker can make his or her testimony rhyme, in which case he or she will receive six minutes and possibly some applause.

I have been personally asked to advise my spirited and passionate readers that pitchforks, torches, huge cauldrons of heated tar, and bags of feathers will not be allowed at the hearings.