REP. SPIROS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
REP. SPIROS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
By Randy Radtke
(Randy Radtke is President of Marathon County Labor Council, AFL-CIO)
It comes as no surprise that after Governor Walker was rejected on the national level that he and his colleagues didn’t waste time attacking Wisconsin workers, again. One of their most recent attacks is on the Workers’ Compensation Act, a program that has worked well for over a 100 years. Workers’ Compensation has worked well because both the employer and employee had a voice in the process.
One of the co-sponsors to this bill is from Central WI’s 86th Assembly District. Rep. John Spiros co-authored Assembly Bill 501, which proposes putting more power in the hands of the employer, making it easier for employers to get workers’ comp claims denied. It is bad enough getting injured on the job and dealing with the pain of being hurt and the many unknowns that come with an injury. But, AB 501 tells how to handle employee abuse, but fails to address employer abuse, and is designed to protect employers at the expense of the worker.
Workers’ Compensation has history here, in Central Wisconsin. A handful of powerful business leaders, known as the Wausau Group, formed Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Co. of Wisconsin in 1911 and wrote U.S.’s first workers’ compensation policy, giving Wausau a proud and unique place in U.S. History.
Mr. Spiros, you should be ashamed of yourself. There are plenty of other things that are messed up in our state right now that you could be working on. You should be focusing on bringing more family supporting jobs back to Wisconsin.