Hi there dear readers – Friday is upon us and your humble blogger can already hear the hum of the margarita machines and the unscrewing of scotch bottles just around the corner.  But, as if cursed by the G-ds of workers compensation to almost always deliver bad news, I bring you the report that AB553 inches closer to being law, having just passed committee.

What is AB553?  Referenced previously on this most humble of blogs, AB553 would require any portion of the $120 million return to work fund to be distributed in equal shares to workers every year.

At present, injured workers who receive a SJDB Voucher might be entitled to an additional $5,000 forced out of the pockets of employers from the state as part of the “return to work” program.  Fully funded, the RTW fund could provide a supplemental $5,000 to 24,000 workers per year.  Presumably, if only 12,000 workers applied for the supplemental program and used up a total of $60 million, AB553 would have the effect of directing the remaining $60 million would be disbursed to those workers by the following April.

Now you might be thinking: Greg, your bow ties make you good lookin’ as heck, but you’re wrong here: why are you begrudging the poor injured workers some free money?

Well as sharp as I look in my bow ties (which everyone should wear, mind you) this bill is yet another tax on the employer.  How injured one is and how much of a “supplement” to a voucher one needs is not determined by how many other injuries there were that year.  The [barely] veiled policy behind this bill is if we have a year where employers make sure more of their employees are safe or, when injured, are returned to work, they should STILL be taxed a collective $120 million next year.

If we were to take for granted that the program is a good idea to begin with, then employers should be rewarded for avoiding the need for a voucher, either through safe work places or through re-employing permanently disabled workers, by NOT being assessed $120 million each year.

Hopefully AB553 will suffer the same fate as befell so many hopes, dreams, and aspirations of your humble blogger: rejected, mocked, and forgotten.

In the meantime, have a good weekend!