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Recall Mandate: Gov Davis' Anti-Labor Attack on Workers' Compensation
Death penalty Democrat Gov Gray Davis made sure we should support his recall by signing a reactionary Workers' Compensation bill on 9/12/03, slashing Workers' Comp. benefits.
Death penalty Democrat Gov Gray Davis made sure we should support his recall by signing a reactionary Workers' Compensation bill on 9/12/03, slashing Workers' Comp. benefits.
This bill came about because the retail business Costco and aerospace company Boeing threatened to leave California unless their Workers' Comp premiums were reduced.
There cuts were made swiftly by Democrats and Republicans together, unlike the passage of a budget or the solving of our energy problems, much less solving all of the problems of California, which always take a long time, and in the case of the problems, are never seriously addressed.
According to the World Socialist Website, 9/15/03, at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/comp-s15.shtml,
"* Fees to doctors and outpatient clinics will be reduced to the Medicare level, and pharmacy charges to the Medi-Cal level. As a result, many providers and pharmacies will refuse to serve workers’ compensation beneficiaries, or will force them to make up price differentials out of their own pockets.
* Workers’ visits to chiropractic and physical therapy clinics, which presently can continue so long as the treatment is beneficial, will be capped at 24. Like most arbitrary caps, this particular “reform” falls hardest on the most seriously injured workers, who sometimes require months, if not years, of therapy to mitigate the pain and disabling effects of work injuries. For those too disabled to return to their former jobs, unlimited access to vocational training programs will be ended, and replaced with a more restrictive voucher system.
* There will be stricter guidelines on how often workers can file for benefits and on what kinds of treatments will be available. Employers will have a full year, rather than 30 days, to contest a worker’s claim. Employers will, moreover, have the right to compel workers to obtain a second opinion on back injuries."
While the capitalist press likes to give one the impression that workers' are abusing the current Workers' Comp system en masse, the facts are:
"According to a recent study by the state Division of Workers Compensation, 40 percent of injured workers received no workers’ compensation benefits at all. Those who do obtain compensation are, for the most part, paid much less than someone injured off the job by negligence, such as in an automobile accident."
As to the alleged fraud:
"The system is indeed riddled with fraud, but not at the hands of workers. Insurance companies, health care providers and drug firms inflate prices, bill unnecessarily, wrongfully deny claims, and milk billions of dollars out of the system. They should be penalized, not the workers who are victimized by their unscrupulous methods."
As to the claim that the cuts were needed to save jobs from leaving the state:
"One might just as well call for government subsidies to burglars to dissuade them from breaking into people’s homes and stealing their goods!"
and
"The unstated premise behind the claim of “saving jobs” is the complete subordination of human needs and the social good to corporate profit, the outcome of which is a never-ending decline in the standard of living of working families. The implication is that workers have no legitimate interests or needs that are in conflict with, or in any way independent of, the profit requirements of the bosses. In other words: “What’s good for the master is good for the slave!”
An alternate program that strengthens the Workers' Comp program in favor of the needs of the workingclass is stated in the above article as follows:
"* Safeguard workers’ health and safety.
Rigorously enforce all existing standards and laws to protect workers against injury and illness
Strengthen health and safety provisions to reduce on-the-job injuries and minimize worker exposure to toxic substances
Allow employees to refuse to work under unsafe conditions
Vigorously prosecute in civil, and where appropriate, criminal court, all employers found in substantial breach of health and safety regulations
* Eliminate fraud by taking profit out of health care. Establish a government-managed system to provide quality health care for all.
Transform the big insurance firms, health care giants and pharmaceutical monopolies into public utilities, run under the democratic control of the working people
Build new health and rehabilitation facilities, and train new health care workers to meet the needs of injured and disabled workers
Pay injured workers full salaries until they can return to work"
Vote Yes on the Recall!
Vote Socialist for Governor: John Christopher Burton at http://www.socialequality.com or http://www.wsws.org
or
C.T. Weber at http://www.peaceandfreedom.org or
http://www.la-peaceandfreedom.org
Vote No on 53 and 54!
This bill came about because the retail business Costco and aerospace company Boeing threatened to leave California unless their Workers' Comp premiums were reduced.
There cuts were made swiftly by Democrats and Republicans together, unlike the passage of a budget or the solving of our energy problems, much less solving all of the problems of California, which always take a long time, and in the case of the problems, are never seriously addressed.
According to the World Socialist Website, 9/15/03, at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/comp-s15.shtml,
"* Fees to doctors and outpatient clinics will be reduced to the Medicare level, and pharmacy charges to the Medi-Cal level. As a result, many providers and pharmacies will refuse to serve workers’ compensation beneficiaries, or will force them to make up price differentials out of their own pockets.
* Workers’ visits to chiropractic and physical therapy clinics, which presently can continue so long as the treatment is beneficial, will be capped at 24. Like most arbitrary caps, this particular “reform” falls hardest on the most seriously injured workers, who sometimes require months, if not years, of therapy to mitigate the pain and disabling effects of work injuries. For those too disabled to return to their former jobs, unlimited access to vocational training programs will be ended, and replaced with a more restrictive voucher system.
* There will be stricter guidelines on how often workers can file for benefits and on what kinds of treatments will be available. Employers will have a full year, rather than 30 days, to contest a worker’s claim. Employers will, moreover, have the right to compel workers to obtain a second opinion on back injuries."
While the capitalist press likes to give one the impression that workers' are abusing the current Workers' Comp system en masse, the facts are:
"According to a recent study by the state Division of Workers Compensation, 40 percent of injured workers received no workers’ compensation benefits at all. Those who do obtain compensation are, for the most part, paid much less than someone injured off the job by negligence, such as in an automobile accident."
As to the alleged fraud:
"The system is indeed riddled with fraud, but not at the hands of workers. Insurance companies, health care providers and drug firms inflate prices, bill unnecessarily, wrongfully deny claims, and milk billions of dollars out of the system. They should be penalized, not the workers who are victimized by their unscrupulous methods."
As to the claim that the cuts were needed to save jobs from leaving the state:
"One might just as well call for government subsidies to burglars to dissuade them from breaking into people’s homes and stealing their goods!"
and
"The unstated premise behind the claim of “saving jobs” is the complete subordination of human needs and the social good to corporate profit, the outcome of which is a never-ending decline in the standard of living of working families. The implication is that workers have no legitimate interests or needs that are in conflict with, or in any way independent of, the profit requirements of the bosses. In other words: “What’s good for the master is good for the slave!”
An alternate program that strengthens the Workers' Comp program in favor of the needs of the workingclass is stated in the above article as follows:
"* Safeguard workers’ health and safety.
Rigorously enforce all existing standards and laws to protect workers against injury and illness
Strengthen health and safety provisions to reduce on-the-job injuries and minimize worker exposure to toxic substances
Allow employees to refuse to work under unsafe conditions
Vigorously prosecute in civil, and where appropriate, criminal court, all employers found in substantial breach of health and safety regulations
* Eliminate fraud by taking profit out of health care. Establish a government-managed system to provide quality health care for all.
Transform the big insurance firms, health care giants and pharmaceutical monopolies into public utilities, run under the democratic control of the working people
Build new health and rehabilitation facilities, and train new health care workers to meet the needs of injured and disabled workers
Pay injured workers full salaries until they can return to work"
Vote Yes on the Recall!
Vote Socialist for Governor: John Christopher Burton at http://www.socialequality.com or http://www.wsws.org
or
C.T. Weber at http://www.peaceandfreedom.org or
http://www.la-peaceandfreedom.org
Vote No on 53 and 54!
For more information:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/...
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This writer belongs to the Yes on Recall camp and thus urges you vote Yes on the Recall and vote Socialist, either John Christopher Burton or CT Weber, for governor, as well as NO on 53 and 54.
The 9th Circuit 3-judge section has delayed the recall for a week, pending an appeal. Rather than going to the full 9th Circuit (en banc as it is officially called), the recall people are going straight to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could just refuse to hear the case but that is not likely and thus their decision will certainly be in the majority for the Oct 7 recall. This is speculative, of course. The recall could still be postponed to March 2, the date of the California presidential primary. If so, that ballot will be extremely long, and the money spent on the recall to date wlil have to be respent. As to the excuse, that some California counties have still not updated their voting machines after officially having 3 years to do so, and in reality, many more years as this problem with punch-card ballots is not new at all, it is an insult to California taxpayers that these counties still do not have updated machines, and is a direct reflection of the reactionary priorities of the Democrat-Republicans who sit in state offices, including but not limited to Gray Davis. The money to update these machines could have and should have been spent long ago.
Assuming the recall go forward in either October or March,
this writer and many others supports the recall of anyone who, like Gray Davis, supports:
(1) the death penalty
(2) prisons
(3) private energy companies.
Gray Davis, as the article above shows, is also no friend of labor with his reactionary workers' comp bill. He has had almost 5 years to abolish the death penalty, stop all prison construction, promote putting drug prisoners in rehabilitation programs, and taking over all private energy companies by right of eminent domain and establishing a public power agency. After all, Los Angeles and Palo Alto have public power, and San Francisco's public buildings and public transit system are powered by public power, so it can certainly and must be expanded to the rest of the state.
CALL KPFA TO DEMAND THESE CANDIDATES ARE INTERVIEWED
KPFA's Morning Show hosts, Phil Maldari and Andrea Lewis, are proud Democrats, which is insulting to the KPFA audience. Maldari was outrageous in his interview of Pete Camejo, Green Party candidate for governor, this morning on prime time, 7:35 a.m. Camejo was excellent as he knows his subject very well. I do not support every position of the Greens, but his statement that we must stop playing the reactionary "lesser" evil game and ALWAYS vote our conscience if we are to build any kind of progressive voting constituency that anyone listens to is correct.
Cruz Bustamante, the Democrats' replacement for Gray Davis, is just as reactionary as Gray Davis and the Republicans as Bustamante is Joe Lieberman's California campaign manager for his run for the presidency. Bustamante supports the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the death penalty, trying children as adults, has supported deregulation of energy companies, and actively supports gambling, a sure sign of complete degeneracy and contempt for the workingclass as gambling is by definition a transfer of the wealth from the workingclass to the capitalist class and its upper middle class lackeys. Ths helping the poor Indians routine is just a sales pitch for gambling; it is just making the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. THIS IS THE CANDIDATE THE GOOD DEMOCRATS AT KPFA SUPPORT. This is insulting and must end.
Maldari announced at the end of this interview with Camejo that he was only going to interview "major" candidates. Since socialist candidates are not major candidates, this so-called progressive radio station apparently is not planning to interview them, unless you complain.
PLEASE CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL AND/OR FAX KPFA to demand that John Christopher Burton and CT Weber be interviewed for at least 20 minutes between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on the morning show. This is what being free speech radio is all about. You can tell them that Burton and Weber will be in Oakland at the Fellowship Of Humanities, 390 27th St./Broadway Oakland, CA on Sunday, Sept 21, 7:30 p.m. They could do an interview with each of them right there and play the tape on the morning show.
KPFA , 94.1 FM, may be reached as follows:
http://www.kpfa.org
Tel: (510) 848-6767
Fax: 510/848-3812
News Fax: 510/848-1489
Address: 1929 Martin Luther King Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
In addition, you should try to learn the lessons of history and apply them to the present. It is not enough for a candidate or party to call themselves socialist, they need to prove it through their defence of the working class on every issue. Throughout history, false leaders calling themselves socialists or progressives have led people down the wrong path and caused great catastrophes for humanity.
If you are a socialist and care about working people, you should look into the different socialist parties and find the one that is more consistent with this goal.
Why do you not make a distinction between Burton and Weber?
I recommend this article:
"Why the SEP is opposing the California recall"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/corr-s17.shtml