Thread: Lawmaker: No workers' comp for entrants

Lawmaker: No workers' comp for entrants
Proposal runs into opposition from Chamber
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona
Published: 02.26.2007

PHOENIX — Rep. Russell Pearce doesn't think that people who are working in this country illegally should be able to get benefits if they're injured on the job.

But Pearce's effort to bar compensation is getting a fight from business interests that fear that the alternative would be far worse: lawsuits.
David Selden, a member of the board of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the workers' compensation program is set up as a no-fault system. Companies agree to cover medical bills and a percentage of lost wages regardless of whether the injury is due to employee or company negligence.

In exchange, though, employers generally cannot be sued: The workers have to accept the benefits within the workers'- comp law.

But Selden said that if the injured employees are denied benefits, then they are free to sue. And Selden said even if the company eventually wins in court, that can be an expensive process.

Pearce, a Republican, is unmoved by business protests. He said any company that hires an undocumented worker probably deserves to be sued.

And Pearce said he sees workers' compensation coverage as a tax, even though the benefits are covered through insurance premiums paid by companies or, in the case of some large firms, through self-insurance.

"Any time you use the force of government and you mandate programs, it's a tax," he said. "We take money from businesses, put it into a pool to cover these kinds of issues."

Pearce is having some trouble convincing colleagues — and not just Democrats. In fact, one version of his proposal failed to clear the House Commerce Committee on a 5-5 vote.

Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-Safford, said Pearce is "well intended." But Konopnicki, who owns several McDonald's franchises, called it "very detrimental to business."

That is unlikely to be the last word: Pearce said he will continue efforts to push through measures that he believes will cut down on illegal immigration. And he said halting people who work here without documents from getting benefits is one piece of that solution.

"The public has spoken loud and clear," Pearce said. "We keep coddling employers we know intentionally hire illegal aliens."

Much of the debate surrounds whether companies knowingly employ illegal immigrants or, at the very least, don't make a big effort to determine if applicants are in this country legally.

The Pew Center for Hispanic Studies estimates there are about 500,000 people in Arizona illegally. And the presumption is that a good percentage are working — meaning someone is hiring them.

Pearce said he believes that many employers do the minimum checking possible of the required documents. So he said he has no sympathy for employers who might get stuck in a lawsuit from an injured worker.

"You know the liability, you know the Arizona Constitution," he said.
Konopnicki said it's not as simple as that. He said employers can only do so much to verify the veracity of documents presented to them by applicants.

"I do my due diligence," he said, including filling out the federal I-9 form that lists what documents must be provided. And Konopnicki said he keeps copies of the documents presented.

"I don't hire illegals as an employer," he said. But Konopnicki said legislation like this harms "mom and pop" operations that do the right thing, have a worker who is injured and then find out that the workers' compensation coverage they purchased won't protect them.

Selden said the flaws with what Pearce wants to do go beyond the hardship on employers.

He said a worker who is hurt is sent to a health clinic that specializes in industrial injuries. But he said that if during that treatment it is learned the person is here illegally — meaning no insurance for treatment — there would be a temptation to transfer that person to a public hospital where the cost would be borne by taxpayers.

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/170665

"Proposal runs into opposition from Chamber"

If the chamber doesn't want it then you know the proposal must be good.

When I lived in Houston, when an illegal was injured on a construction
job, he was loaded on a pickup truck and dumped just outside the Emergency Room to be patched up at taxpayers expense so passing this law will not change much.