POLITICS: Labor Keeps Promise to Put Workers’ Comp Up for Vote
Howard Fine
The first volley has been fired in the 2002 workers’ comp initiative wars.
As promised, the California Labor Federation and the California Applicants Attorneys Association filed papers on Dec. 7 with state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, declaring their intention to place a workers’ comp initiative package on the November 2002 ballot.
Last September, labor leaders had threatened to take just this action if Gov. Gray Davis vetoed two bills to increase workers’ compensation benefits by a cumulative $3 billion to $4 billion. Veto the bills Davis did, just as he had vetoed similar bills during each of his first two years in office, saying they would impose too great a financial burden on businesses in the state.
In doing so, Davis angered Senate President John Burton, D-San Francisco, who retaliated by denying the governor the votes to convene a special session of the Legislature to craft a rescue package for Southern California Edison.
Now Burton and labor leaders want to take their case directly to the people, an ironic move considering that the California Labor Federation last month endorsed Davis for re-election.
The initiative package (actually two separate initiatives) essentially puts the benefit increases vetoed by the governor to the voters, with one exception: instead of phasing in the increases over five years, the increases would hit all at once on Jan. 1, 2003.
The Labor Federation estimates benefits would increase by a cumulative total of $3 billion; employer groups put that figure much higher, at between $5 billion and $6 billion.
Indeed, employer groups are now debating their own strategy: whether to mount a campaign costing tens of millions of dollars to defeat the initiative or to put their own benefit increase initiative on the same ballot, according to Lori Kammerer, executive director of the California Coalition on Workers’ Compensation.
Complicating matters, Kammerer said, is the possibility that labor is simply using the threat of an initiative as a hammer to force the governor and the Legislature to pass a benefits increase.
Burton, though, publicly denied the initiatives were a “negotiating ploy.”
But Kammerer did raise an interesting question: “What if the governor and the Legislature do agree on a benefit increase package after the ballot deadline, when it’s too late to remove the initiative? Would labor still go out and campaign for the initiative?”
Shrinking Fund
The long-awaited $100 million affordable housing trust fund for the city of L.A. appears to be in some trouble, thanks to the city’s growing budget problems.
Two months ago, activists and several councilmembers eager to follow Mayor James Hahn’s campaign pledge to contribute $100 million to the effort, released their plan to jump-start the trust fund, including tapping community redevelopment funds, general fund dollars and revenues from residential developers.
But the Sept. 11 attacks and the growing city budget deficit pushed the trust fund proposal to the back burner, and a slightly less ambitious plan to start at $70 million and work up to $100 million was unveiled.
Now, even that plan may be in jeopardy. Hahn last week (Dec. 12) met with housing advocates and told them his office would come up with a new proposal in the next couple weeks.
Even then, it won’t be until well into next year before the City Council takes up the proposal, council aides say.
Home for the Holidays
Speaking of the mayor and the holidays, Mayor Hahn, like his predecessor Riordan, is taking a couple weeks off. But unlike Riordan, Hahn’s not traveling to some Mexican resort villa or European getaway: he’s staying right here in L.A., according to spokesperson Hilda Delgado.
Staff Reporter Howard Fine can be contacted by phone at (323) 549-5225, ext. 227 or by e-mail at
[email protected].
