BY JENNY LONG
SYDNEY — The details are emerging of the NSW Labor Council's deal with the state Labor government to resolve the debacle over industrial relations minister John Della Bosca's proposed changes to workers' compensation.
Although the government has so far refused to withdraw the offensive bill, it has agreed to amend it by incorporating an agreed dispute resolution process drawn up by the Labor Council. This would replace Della Bosca's proposals which provided for no appeals process for disagreements on a range of issues, including over the benefits to be paid for injuries.
Under the deal, the existing compensation court will still be replaced by a workers' compensation commission, but now there will be a judicial system for the determination of claims, which may involve an arbitrator holding an informal hearing, with the right of an appeal to a vice-president of the commission. Binding medical assessments will remain for assessing degrees of permanent impairment, but appeals will still be allowed.
Full details of the dispute resolution process remain sketchy. The annual conference of the Public Service Association, which covers public servants at the court, was told on May 25 that the compensation court may be allowed to continue operating only to finalise matters currently before it, that is one to two years, before being wound up.
Delegates at the conference questioned guest speaker and Labor Council president, Sandra Moait, about why the council had not called all-union delegates meetings to discuss the campaign to defend the existing workers' compensation set up. Moait responded that it was not the Labor Council's place to organise delegates of union affiliates and that those unions should be free to decide on any action they deemed appropriate.
In place of the American Medical Association guidelines proposed by the government for the assessment of permanent impairment — which aren't designed for such a process, use an "all-of-body" approach to assessing impairment, omit psychological and psychiatric injuries and don't deal adequately with neck and back injuries — a new set of guidelines is to be developed with Labor Council input, and the current table of disabilities is to be used in the interim. Three months has been optimistically allocated by the government to complete this process.
The Labor Council has retained former industrial relations minister Jeff Shaw QC to review the amendments that the government is making to its bill to ensure that it keeps to its word. An inquiry will also be established, expected to run from June to August, to investigate the current system of workers' common law rights. It is this system and the associated legal costs which have been blamed by the government for the blowout in liabilities under the current Workcover scheme.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has expressed concern at the government blaming injured workers, or their lawyers, for the blowout in the scheme's costs. Instead, it has reported that there is a significant problem with employers not paying proper workers compensation premium. The managed fund is therefore being deprived of tens of millions of dollars. Overcoming this will require a more innovative approach for Workcover to collect premiums; obligations on principal contractors to ensure that sub contractors are complying; and hefty penalties for employers cheating on their premiums.