Posts Tagged ‘politics’

An Indiana Power Grab Shows Politics At Its Worst

Thursday, July 21st, 2022

Fifty-two-year-old Theodore Edward Rokita, known as Todd, not Ted, is Indiana’s 44th Attorney General.

A dedicated far-right Republican, his political life is a thirsty search for one powerful political office after another. Elected Indiana’s Secretary of State at age 32 in 2002, he was the youngest Secretary of State in America at the time. He went on to capture Indiana’s 4th Congressional District seat in 2011 and served in the U.S. House until 2019.

In 2015, during his time in the House, Indiana created the Healthy Indiana Plan and expanded its Medicaid Program to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act. Rokita’s reaction to this was to say the ACA was “one of the most insidious laws ever created by man.”

He ran against Eric Holcomb for Governor in 2016 to replace Mike Pence, who had resigned to become Donald Trump’s running mate. Holcomb won convincingly, and, as I hope to prove below, Rokita never forgave him for the drubbing.

In 2017, Rokita resigned his House seat and sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator. He failed again.

But in 2020, in a political comeback of sorts, Todd, not Ted, Rokita defeated incumbent Curtis Hill for the Republican nomination for Indiana Attorney General, and in November 2020, he won the general election.

If that were all we ever learned of Todd Rokita, we could chalk him up as just another political hack of the Republican persuasion.

But the story doesn’t end there. It begins there. And it begins with a 10-year-old girl from Ohio.

In May 2022, a man from Columbus, Ohio, Gerson Fuentes, 27, allegedly raped that 10-year-old girl not once, but twice, and she became pregnant by him. On 27 June, a child abuse doctor treated her, but could not refer her for an abortion in Ohio, because, following the Supreme Court’s Roe reversal earlier in June, Ohio’s trigger law fired and outlawed abortions after six weeks of insemination. He determined the girl was six weeks and three days pregnant. So, he called a colleague in neighboring Indiana, where abortions were still legal in the first 22 weeks. Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist, agreed to help, and the 10-year-old was quickly on her way to Indiana.

On 30 June, Dr. Bernard performed the abortion. The 10-year-old, who will bear the horrid psychological scars of this for the rest of her life, was spared the further horror of giving birth to her rapist’s child.

Among all the bureaucratic red tape government can create, Indiana has created what are called Termination of Pregnancy Reports, TPRs, and these must be completed by physicians who terminate pregnancies in the state. In the case of a pre-teen abortion, the law calls for TPR completion within three days of the abortion. Dr. Bernard completed and submitted her TPR for the 10-year-old within two days, on 2 July, thereby complying with the law.

On the first of July, one day after the abortion and one day before Dr. Bernard submitted her TPR, the Indianapolis Star ran a story about pregnant women from Ohio and Kentucky who were heading to Indiana for abortions because of the restrictive laws in their states. The story began:

On Monday, three days after the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, took a call from a colleague, a child abuse doctor in Ohio.

Hours after the Supreme Court action, the Buckeye state had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.

Could Bernard help?

The story later said Dr. Bernard had agreed to help. It did not say she had performed the abortion, just that she had agreed to help.

This story caught the nation’s attention, mostly for the wrong reasons. It was ridiculed. The Wall Street Journal called it “fanciful.” Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost was among those who questioned the validity of the story.  Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan called the story “another lie” in a now-deleted tweet. Some of Fox’s most high-profile hosts — Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham — suggested the account of the 10-year-old rape victim was a “hoax” and “politically timed disinformation,” and claimed that the Biden administration was “lying” about the case after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

All this happened between the Indy Star’s story and the arrest—and confession—of Mr. Fuentes, which is when the backtracking happened. Jordan deleted his tweet, the WSJ issued a “correction,” Fox News actually took credit for “justice being served,” and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, with all the empathy of an empty paper cup, saw an opportunity and took the stage.

Was he devastated that a 10-year-old had suffered such a horrific experience? If he was, he never said. What he did say, during a press conference he hurriedly called on the subject, complete with TV, Radio and Print media, was that he would be investigating Dr. Bernard for failing to provide the Termination of Pregnancy Report within the time required by law (She had).

On 13 July, twelve days after the abortion, he wrote a letter to Governor Holcomb, the same Eric Holcomb who had trounced him in the race for Governor, advising, “If  Doctor Bernard has failed to file the required reports on time, she has committed an offense, the consequences of which could include criminal prosecution and licensure repercussions.” Rokita went on to say “key” people on his staff had been trying to get the Indiana Department of Health to forward the TPR for two days, without success. Two days.

Rokita’s letter lectures the Governor, saying, “As state officeholders, we bear an important responsibility to get to the bottom of this matter immediately….” He admonishes the man who beat him in the election of 2016 by saying Holcomb should “direct the state agencies under your purview to produce immediately to my office the requested TPRs…so we can confirm Dr. Bernard’s compliance with the law.”*

Not one drop of the Balm of Gilead does Todd, not Ted, Rokita offer the 10-year-old whose life has been so tragically scarred. Nope. He can’t be bothered. He has other things on his mind. He is 100% focused on scoring whatever rancid political points he can.

No wonder people hate politicians.

 

*On 14 July, one day after Rokita’s letter to the Governor, Indianapolis TV station Fox 59 published the TPR, submitted by Dr. Bernard within two days of the procedure, which it had secured by a Freedom of Information request. Maybe Todd should have tried that.

One Day More

Monday, November 2nd, 2020

Music is built on mathematics. Together they form humanity’s only universal language. With that in mind, here’s One Day More, the greatest Act One Finale in the history of theatre. Just to set the tone and get your blood moving.

“Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store.”

No gloom and doom today. Just a thank you to all who have voted and who will vote. We’ll probably wind up with the largest vote count in the history of the country in both raw numbers and as a percentage of population. If Donald Trump has done nothing else, and he sure has done a lot, he’s brought out the vote.

After the dust settles, we’ll get more into that “done a lot” thing.

Stay safe.

The Attic Door Is Opening

Friday, October 16th, 2020

Today is the 166th birthday of the controversial, but brilliant Irishman and playright Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. In his day, the wittiest man in Dublin, or anywhere else for that matter. And it’s the 129th anniversary of the publication of his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. We’ll come back to that in a bit.

Moving to the present, we have 18 days to go, and I know you know what I mean. Eighteen unpredictable, but grueling days until 3 November, the official election day, although the election is well underway with more than 17 million votes already cast across 44 states and the District of Columbia. Democrats have voted early at four times the rate of republicans, most of whom plan on voting in person on the 3rd.

I confess for me it’s hard to focus on anything else, workers’ compensation, for instance. I’ve tried, but I keep getting sucked back into the political black hole.

Because not all states treat early balloting the same, it is highly unlikely we will know the result on the night of the 3rd, but we will certainly know at some point. To get to that point, the parties will face off in a fight to the death. Neither of them will bring a knife to that gunfight. The Supreme Court may step in à la Bush v. Gore. Given recent shenanigans, won’t that be interesting?

Last night during Joe Biden’s Town Hall in Philadelphia, George Stephanopoulos asked the former Vice President what he’d do if he lost. Biden said he’d probably go back to teaching and working at The Biden Institute within the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware (he taught constitutional law from 1991 to 2008 – bet you didn’t know that). He said he’d also continue working on the causes he’s advocating during the campaign.

Samantha Guthrie asked the same question of President Trump at his simultaneous, split screen Town Hall in Miami, but couldn’t get a similar rational response that he’d go quietly into that good night. I have the feeling that if the President loses we’re in for Hellzapoppin’.

During his presidency, Donald Trump, who, during the 2016 campaign famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”, has been more teflon-coated than any of your expensive kitchenware. Fiascos that would annihilate Paul Bunyan just bounce off. But since mid-way through the pandemic, things seem to have changed. Recent polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows 59% of likely voters believe he has managed our healthcare horrendoma poorly. And in the last few weeks it’s been one thing after another tarnishing his image. While his followers remain religiously devoted, the rest of the nation seems to be turning on him. At last night’s Town Halls, Biden was calm, thoughtful and engaging with his questioners, going so far as to ask one young man to stay after the Town Hall so they could talk some more. Trump, on the other hand, was, well, Trump, on defense, but in fighting mode, nonetheless.

All of which brings us back to Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the novel, Dorian Gray, a handsome and hedonistic young man, sells his soul à la Faust, but with a twist. A famous artist paints his portrait, which Dorian puts in the attic of his home. Over the years, the young man in the portrait in the attic ages in a gruesome, hideous way, but not Dorian himself, who lives a life of debauchery and cruelty. Finally, in a fit of remorse, he slashes the painting. Servants below hear agonizing cries, rush to the attic and break down the door, only to find an unrecognizable and very dead old man lying in front of the painting, restored to its original beauty.

Donald Trump’s attic door is beginning to crack open.

Fresh Health Wonk Review at medicareresources.org blog – check it out!

Friday, February 10th, 2017

Steve Anderson has posted the latest and greatest Health Wonk Review – the #alternative_facts Edition at medicareresources.org blog.

The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is not all that’s on our wonks’ minds of late, but it certainly takes up a huge portion of the mind share as evidenced by the plethora of related posts. We are a diverse crew, though, so there are also posts about a variety of other topics: the reaction to/impact of the immigration ban on healthcare industry, best cancer treatments, the process of healthcare M&As, legal liability in the form of class action suits for a data breach. and workers comp. One thing we find: the contributors are all very knowledgeable people – even if a topic is not on your radar, it’s a good way to learn something new.

Two posts we think are particularly worth calling out:

If ACA is repealed, how many will max out on restored lifetime coverage caps?

If ACA is repealed, how many are at risk of losing coverage by U.S. Congressional District? (Data covers 35 states)

Honor Sold, Trust Betrayed: Unbridled Greed in California

Wednesday, February 26th, 2014

“What is here?
Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?”

— Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
Suppose you’re a doctor in California with a patient who complains that his back hurts a lot. Suppose further that Michael Drobot, the owner of California’s Pacific Health Corporation, will give you $15,000 if you refer your patient to his Pacific Hospital of Long Beach for lumbar fusion surgery, which may or may not be warranted. And what if Drobot’s Pacific Hospital were hundreds of miles away and that other qualified hospitals that wouldn’t pay you a kickback were much closer. What would you do?
It is illegal under both California and Federal law to pay doctors for referring patients to hospitals. Yet, according to Andre Birotte, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, this is precisely what Drobot was doing on a massive scale in California from 2003 through 2008. The kickbacks amounted to between $20 million and $50 million. That was chump change compared to what Drobot netted from the surgeries. On Friday, Birotte announced that Drobot had pleaded guilty to paying the kickbacks in what amounted to a $500 million dollar fraud conspiracy and now faces up to 10 years in prison.
Drobot began building his health care empire in the mid-1990s. He bought a number of hospitals, but Pacific Hospital was his jewel in the crown. It was his “spine center,” and, according to U.S. Attorney Birotte, it is where doctors, who apparently think the Hippocratic Oath a mere suggestion, would refer patients for questionable lumbar fusion surgery at $15,000 per surgery. That is, unless the referral was for a cervical fusion, in which case the kickback was only $10,000. Needless to say, there were more lumbar fusions.
Workers compensation paid for all of this. More than 150 insurance companies were “ripped off,” according to Eric Weirich, Deputy Commissioner of the California Insurance Department’s Enforcement Branch.
The Los Angeles Times has been covering the Michael Drobot saga for the last 6 years. Drobot’s Pacific Health Corp. got itself out of big trouble in 2012 when it agreed to pay $16.5 million dollars to the government to avoid criminal conspiracy charges. From 2003 to 2008 it recruited homeless people, drove them to one of Pacific Health Corp’s hospitals and then charged Medicare and Medicaid for services never performed. The whole thing makes “ambulance chasing” look like a PBS donor acknowledgement.
But that little traipse into the dark side pales in comparison to the spinal fusion scheme.
In 2012, California SB 863 threatened to put more than a little crimp in Michael Drobot’s hose of money. Up until SB 863, Pacific Health Corp was paid highly inflated prices for both the surgeries and the surgical hardware, because it could charge duplicate invoices for the surgical implant hardware. The provisions of SB 863 would have severely limited duplicate payments beginning 1 January 2013. If Dobrot couldn’t collect the duplicate payments he wouldn’t be able to pay the kickbacks to get the patients he needed to keep the scheme going. He desperately wanted those provisions to be mitigated to some degree. To do that, he needed help.
He got it from friends in high places – the California Legislature. It’s a little murky as to method, but prior to final passage, SB 863 was changed to allow half the duplicate payments to continue, status quo, for all of 2013. The authorities have been looking into this, and U.S. Attorney Birotte has begun to reel in the fish.
The day before he indicted Michael Drobot, Birotte indicted state Senator Ron Calderon and his brother, former Assemblyman Tom Calderon, on 24 charges, including bribery and money laundering. Ron Calderon is alleged to have been paid more than $100,000 in bribes by Michael Drobot and in an FBI sting operation that Calderon thought was a film studio. If convicted, he faces up to 400 years in prison. And that’s the blood in the water that California’s media sharks now circle. Here’s an LA Times infographic of the Calderon family’s tree of connections and alleged corruption.
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However, as that great TV salesman, Ron Popeil, used to say, “But wait! There’s more!”
An FBI affidavit leaked to, of all places, Al Jazeera America, is making life uncomfortable for at least four other legislators, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. Look deeply enough at this and one begins to think that Teapot Dome was nothing more than a benign business deal gone bad. (See the full associated Al Jazeera story: State Compensation Insurance Fund’s lawsuit against Michael Drobot)
Notwithstanding all of this, I keep coming back in my mind to those doctors, those chiropractors, those medical professionals who sold their souls and endangered their patients for all that “yellow, glittering, precious gold.” I ask, “Where is the outrage?” At some point, one hopes that U.S. Attorney Birotte turns his eyes to them.

Massachusetts Insurers Take One for the Team (Again)

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

I have written before about what I consider to be a true Massachusetts Miracle: The 1992 reform of the Commonwealth’s workers’ compensation system and the results achieved following that reform. Bottom line – premium rates in Massachusetts are among the lowest in the nation while benefits are among the highest.
To make that happen back in 1992 all of the varying and vested constituencies had to come together and enter a grand compromise where everyone lost something so that the system could flourish as it has ever since (I won’t bother to mention that the current crop of folks we Americans have sent to the nation’s capital might learn something from this).
Employers and injured workers have benefited hugely from the 1992 reform. Insurers not so much, especially lately. Early this year, the Massachusetts Workers Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau, representing insurers doing workers comp business in the Commonwealth, requested that Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance, Joseph G. Murphy, approve a premium rate increase of 18.8%. After the Division held hearings and thought about it for a while, Mr. Murphy announced that he was denying the request – all of it. Result: Status quo, just as in New York a few weeks earlier. But if you think about it, this might actually be an insurer victory of sorts, because Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley had made her own rate filing, which called for a reduction in rates of 8.8%. After Commissioner Murphy announced his decision, Ms. Coakley issued a press release saying, “The industry’s request to raise rates could not have come at a worse time for small businesses in Massachusetts.” She also congratulated herself and Commissioner Murphy by saying, “The decision will save Massachusetts workers compensation insurance customers approximately $175 million compared to the rates they would have paid if the proposed rate hike was approved.”
The decision will also cost the Commonwealth’s insurers the same $175 million.
But let’s get real for a minute. As Bill Clinton said last week, “It’s all about the arithmetic.”
Now, there are many variables impacting premium rates in any state. For example, workers compensation medical loss costs have been rising in Massachusetts. Just a couple of years ago they comprised an enviable 36% of total loss costs; now they’re up to about 40%, and rising. But I thought perhaps I could put things in perspective if I just looked at the Massachusetts evolutionary development of a few key factors since the 1992 reforms. And those factors would be workers compensation premium rate changes, wage development and the progression of the CPI. The data in the chart below is taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance and the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA), summarized in the Massachusetts Division of Insurance’s Annual Report of 2010 (PDF) and DIA Circular Letter 336, dated 6 October 2010 (PDF).
ma-rate-changes
In the 17 years since 1994, there have been six years with double digit rate reductions, the largest being 21.1% in 1998, five years with single digit reductions, ranging from 1% to 4%, five years without change, and one year with a whopping big rate increase of 1%. The result is that rates in Massachusetts are where they were in the early 1980s. One by-product of this situation is that many Massachusetts employers seem to have lost the sense of urgency when injuries occur.
On the other hand, the CPI has increased every year since 1994 with the exception of 2010, when there was no change (it’s interesting to compare the CPI development with periods of recession; look at 2009 and 2010, for example), and the average weekly wage in the Commonwealth has grown from $586 in 1994 to $1,088 in 2010 (in 2012, it’s now more than $1,100).
The result shows a steady increase in costs and a steady decline in rates. I have to say that the reductions from 1994 through 1999 were entirely appropriate; those are the result of the 1992 reform. However, the six years with reductions since then, totally 28.3%, are questionable.
The consequences of both Commissioner Murphy’s current decision as well as the recent reductions are now being felt. The Massachusetts Assigned Risk Pool is growing quickly; in the last year it’s jumped from 12% of the market to 15% ($152 million in premium), and that was before the decision of two weeks ago. It would not surprise me to see Pool growth accelerate in the immediate future.
You can only keep the pressure cooker’s lid on for so long.

How does your state score for insurance, ethics, accountability, corruption?

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Here’s a quick summary. In a 50 state overview, there were no “A” students.
The State Integrity Investigation is a $1.5 million public collaborative project designed to expose practices that undermine trust in state capitols — and spotlight the states that are doing things right. It describes itself as “an unprecedented, data-driven analysis of each state’s laws and practices that deter corruption and promote accountability and openness. Experienced journalists graded each state government on its corruption risk using 330 specific measures. The Investigation ranked every state from one to 50. Each state received a report card with letter grades in 14 categories, including campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying regulations, and management of state pension funds.”
Click on the U.S. map to see your state’s corruption risk report card. No states scored an “A.” New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, California, and Nebraska scored in the “B” range. Eight states flunked, scoring 60% or less: Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Georgia. All the remaining states were “C” and “D” students, with our home state of Massachusetts scoring a lackluster 74%, coming in at 10th “best” overall.
How did the insurance departments score?
As citizens, both corporate and private, we find the whole report fairly intriguing, but for the purposes of this blog, we were particularly interested in the ratings for State Insurance Commissions. PropertyCasualty360’s Mark Ruquet did a good analysis of this in his article 16 State Insurance Commissions Fail Integrity Evaluation.
The state Insurance Commissions were evaluated on these questions:

  • Is the state insurance commission protected from political and special interest influence?
  • Does the state insurance commission have sufficient capacity to carry out its mandate?
  • Are there conflicts of interest regulations covering members of the board and senior staff of the state insurance commission?
  • Are the conflicts of interest regulations covering members of the board and senior staff of the state insurance commission effective?
  • Can citizens access the asset disclosure records of the state insurance commission?
  • Does the state insurance commission publicly disclose documents filed by insurance companies?

One of the things we like about the map and the site is that you can keep drilling down. Click your state, then click a specific category – such as “State Insurance Commissions,” “Ethics Enforcement Agencies” or “Public Access to Information” and then click again to see the specific areas that were evaluated. Click any one of those criteria to see how the score was derived, and click again for further detail. You can also read or submit comments. On each individual state page, there is also a narrative story behind the score and a running list of related news articles.
We’ll be spending some time exploring the site further, but our first reaction is positive and we applaud the effort: we love sunlight when it comes to the public good and think it benefits everyone. We’d love to hear reactions about how accurate or inaccurate readers think reports are relative to their own state scores.

Health Wonk Review’s Memorial Day Edition

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Chris Fleming hosts a substantive Memorial Day issue of Health Wonk Review at Health Affairs Blog – there are a lot of good submissions on a variety of topics, from Medicare and the Affordable Care Act to quality and healthcare IT.
If you have an interest in health care – and with medical costs comprising a bigger and bigger portion of the claims dollar every year, you probably do – Health Affairs Blog is a good candidate for your regular reading list. The Blog is an offshoot of the publication of the same name, a peer-reviewed health policy journal that has held a premier place in the health policy arena for the last 30 years. The blog is a welcome adjunct to the journal. According to their “About” page: “The Blog features posts from noted health policy experts on both sides of the political aisle as well as regular Health Affairs contributors and staff. Recent bloggers have included Former Bush HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, economists Uwe Reinhardt and Gail Wilensky, California HealthCare Foundation President and CEO Mark Smith, and Congressman James Cooper (D-TN).”

Illinois Comp: The Nuclear Option?

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Illinois is struggling mightily with its bloated workers comp system. Currently ranked 3rd highest for overall cost in the Oregon study, the governor and legislature are under intense pressure from the business community to lower the cost of comp insurance. Aiming its powerful bulldozers at the state capital, the Caterpiller Company has threatened to move their business somewhere else if reforms are not implemented immediately. In exploring all options, the legislature has gone so far as to think the unthinkable: abolishing workers comp.
In looking for ways to save money, Illinois does what all states do: first, identify the cost drivers and then try to change the statute to bring down costs. Among the hot issues on the table are the medical fee schedule (too generous), employee choice of doctor (too flexible), duration of benefits (too long), causation (too vague). Ah, behind every cost driver is a vested interest (perhaps literally vested, with many of the lobbyists wearing three piece suits). The common denominator among all states struggling with high comp costs is the omni-present stakeholder, who is deeply committed to the status quo.
Governor Quinn would like to see a number of reforms, including the capping of carpal tunnel benefits, denying claims where employee intoxication is a significant factor, attacking fraud (see our blog on Illinois’s dubious arbitration services), capping wage differential benefits at age 67 or five years after an injury, and implementing utilization review for physical therapy, chiropractic and occupational therapy services.
Going Nuclear
The Illinois legislature is so frustrated with the slow progress and with stakeholder resistance to change, they are now threatening to blow up the entire system. Interesting to note, this pressure is coming from the Democrats. John Bradley (D-Marion) has filed House 1032, a bill to repeal the workers comp act and send all workplace-injury issues into the court system. Should this happen, Illinois will find itself in the world prior to 1912, when injured workers had to sue their employers and could collect benefits only if their injuries were caused by someone other than themselves. They would collect no benefits while awaiting adjudication of their claims. They would be out of work and out of luck.
In all likelihood, repeal of workers comp is not a serious option in Illinois; it’s a political strategy for getting the attention of inertia-bound legislators. But the prospect of abolition does raise an interesting issue. Workers comp came to America 100 years ago. By the end of the World War II, every state had implemented the program.
What if there were no workers comp programs today? What if each state were starting from the beginning and tackling the issue of protection for injured workers? I find it hard to imagine that state legislatures would be willing to implement a program, totally funded by employers, that provides indemnity for lost wages and 100 percent medical benefits for injured workers. Why so generous? Why so inclusive? It’s too expensive. It will create disincentives for working. The cost will drive employers out of business or out of state.
With today’s acrimonious, ideology-driven debates, workers comp would be a hard sell. That’s too bad, for despite its problems and inequities, despite the wide variations in benefits and costs from state to state, comp is a compelling example of effective social engineering. In Illinois, cooler heads will likely avoid the meltdown option. To be sure, Illinois comp is a mess, but the alternative – a workplace without workers comp – would be far worse.

Are events in Wisconsin part of a union busting initiative?

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Later this month, we will mark the 100 year anniversary of New York’s horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, an event that claimed the lives of 146 garment workers – young girls and women – who had been locked in the sweatshop to prevent theft. Most died in stairwells, jumping down the single elevator shaft, or by hurtling themselves from 9th story windows in desperate attempts to escape the fire. PBS recently ran a special on this disaster. (If you missed it, you can watch online: Triangle Fire). My colleague Jon Coppelman has also written about the fire in his post The Original “No Exit”.
This fire was a watershed event that galvanized the nation. It occurred in an era where there were no regulations or labor protections. Workers often worked 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. There were no child labor laws or safety mandates. Ironically, the day before the Triangle Fire, New York courts had struck down the state’s first compulsory workers compensation law as unconstitutional.
This tragedy, along with some of the horrific mine disasters that resulted in wholesale loss of life, were catalysts which led to the enactment of various worker protections – including statutory workers’ compensation.
Meanwhile, today in Wisconsin …
We think this bit of history is an important backdrop to what’s going on in Wisconsin today.
Wisconsin has the distinction of being the first state in the union to have enacted a workers’ compensation law that survived legal challenge in May of 1911. In fact, the state of Wisconsin has a long, storied and sometimes bloody history of being on the front lines for worker rights. Workers and labor unions were in the forefront of the fight for the 8-hour day and the 40-hour work week. In 1932, Wisconsin was the first state to enact unemployment compensation.
To any who know this history, it comes as no surprise that, once again, Wisconsin is on the front lines in the battle for labor’s future.
It’s the budget, stupid – or is it?
The ostensible issue, according to Governor Walker, is that the state of Wisconsin is broke and a large part of the problem lies with overly generous benefit packages of public workers – teachers, prison guards and the like – which are said to be crippling the state. He called on unions to do their part and to make a sacrifice for the greater good.
All that might be well and good. The unions have indicated their willingness to take a financial haircut. But the part of Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill that is going over somewhat less well is a call for the elimination of collective bargaining — and therein lies the rub.
With a Republican majority in Wisconsin’s House and Senate, the bill was all but a given until the Democratic senate contingent fled the state to prevent a vote. Since that time, there have been massive protests over three weeks and the so-called Fab 14 remain holed up in un-named Illinois’ hotels. And there has been no shortage of drama in this story: an embarrassing and revelatory 20-minute prank call to Governor Walker from an impersonator of corporate financier David Koch; and a sheriff’s refusal to play the role of “palace guard”, among other things.
Part of national union busting agenda?
Critics of Walker’s Budget Repair Bill say that the issue is not about budget balancing or overly generous benefits, but an ideological push to eliminate or curtail public unions – in a phrase, union busting. Opponents say that this is a corporate-funded campaign to eliminate public unions in Wisconsin and other states, and to privatize many institutions that are currently staffed by public workers. No less a staunch Republican than former Congressman and now host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Joe Scarborough, has publicly called Governor Walker’s actions, “Un-American.”
In Wisconsin, suspicions are high because Koch enterprises funded a large part of Walkers gubernatorial campaign. The fact that the budget bill contains a provision authorizing Walker to conduct no-bid sales of some state properties also heightens suspicion. Many are troubled by his plans for privatization of some public services. In his prior role as Milwaukee County Executive, Walker also used budget emergency as a justification for privatizing security guards, a move that proved less than successful.
Other states have also embarked on this path: Ohio may be making more headway in curtailing unions. In Indiana, Democratic legislators have followed Wisconsin’s lead and left the state to postpone a vote. In Rhode Island, nearly 2000 teachers have been dismissed. Other states may be contemplating similar measures, although some may be a bit shy of action given the shifting public sentiment, which favors retention of collective bargaining and has given Walker a black eye – to a point where voters say they would not elect him again if they had a do-over. (see Wisconsin Public Research, Rasmussen, USA Today/Gallup, Public Policy Polling and various other polls. )
It’s uncertain what will happen in the next chapters, but we will be watching. It is clear this is another watershed point in labor history, a public policy fork in the road, perhaps the beginning of the end of the movement that was propelled into mainstream America by that terrible fire 100 years ago. While polling indicates that sentiment is currently on the side of the teachers in this dispute, the future of public unions is under serious threat. Is the role of unions obsolete? Has the public dialogue achieved an equilibrium between the rights of workers and those of management?
At Lynch Ryan, we have great respect for unions, which have historically played a critical check-and-balance role in labor-management power dynamics. They have also been in the forefront of the fight for worker safety and other worker protections. We also admire and respect many employers we have been privileged to work for who are perceptive and wise enough to manage their companies so well that unions are not needed. We’d like to say that all employers are this enlightened and do not need union checks and balances to do the right thing, but unfortunately our experience tells us that this is not always the case.