Workers’ comp views

I would like to thank John Hale of the Bangor Daily News for his interesting and informative article on the Workers’ Compensation bills (April 12-13). It is clear the bill’s opponents have many years of business experience, a broad knowledge of the workings of our economy, and a commitment to an informed public. I have never really understood how workers’ comp and our economy work so I have learned a lot from these professionals.

There are some things about workers’ comp that still puzzle me. Hale’s article is about two bills that will raise benefits and increase the duration of benefits. Why does Gregory Sweetser, executive director of the Ski Maine Association, say, “Maine has a safer workplace today as a result of reform”? What does workplace safety have to do with benefits?

Do increased benefits make it more or less safe? How does an increase in benefits “clearly move us back to the old ways”? Charles W. Gradie Searsport

My name is Michael Cote and I am the human resource-safety manager at J. Paul Levesque & Sons Inc. Our company employs 247 employees in the production of lumber, with plants located in Ashland and Masardis. I am writing to comment on the various bills before the Legislature and the current state of affairs with our current Workers’ Compensation system.

I have seen the workers’ comp system at its worst, referring to the decade of the 1980s, when workers’ comp premiums for us exceeded $900,000 a year, insurance companies were fleeing the state due to the high cost of writing workers’ comp, litigation was costly and time consuming, and basically the whole system was broken down and drastically in need of repair.

Since the Blue Ribbon Commission reforms of 1992, it is obvious to me, having been through the above-mentioned bad times, that the current system is operating much more efficiently. First, the return of insurance companies to Maine has allowed for good competition amongst the insurance industry to allow for reduced workers’ comp premiums. Second, I have seen a much smoother and less adversarial process in the settling of comp claims throughout the current system of mediations. Both sides still have the opportunity for legal representation and in my experience most problems still get resolved and over a much shorter period of time. Third, our workers’ comp premiums have dropped to $230,000, allowing us to return those savings to the employees in the form of raises and Christmas bonuses.

No matter what type of system exists there will still be unfortunate circumstances for certain individual claims. But I see no need to take a step backward to the old ways of doing business with respect to handling Workers’ Compensation claims. If anything, we should learn from our past mistakes and realize the system of the ’80s and early ’90s was not the way to go and we should not be headed back in that direction. Michael Cote Human resources- Safety manager J. Paul Levesque & Sons Inc. Ashland