On Tuesday of this week, the Washington Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Street v. Weyerhaeuser, the self-insured employer's appeal from an adverse decision of the Court of Appeals last fall.
Particularly in states like California and Washington, where worker advocates wield comparatively strong political clout, we may expect to see a trend of state-level safety regulation tick upward in the absence of comparable federal activity.
An audiogram is the basic diagnostic test for hearing loss. What information is contained in the audiogram and how is it used?
With the critical need for education funding, we must expand our state's economy to meet our constitutional obligations, and I very much see this bill as part of the McCleary solution. - Senator Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane
"At the same time, to the extent legislative budget writers feel constrained to raise taxes on business to fund education or other priorities of government, there will be a search for a countervailing area where tax or regulatory costs on employers can be reduced. And in that regard, Washington's workers' compensation system is always top of mind."
Workers' comp can be a staid topic, but not necessarily on Tuesday as several testy exchanges broke out between Senators and participants.
Last Thursday, November 10th, nearly 200 WSIA members, friends, and colleagues from all corners of the workers' compensation world in Washington came together at Safeco Field for a special fundraiser benefiting Kids' Chance of Washington.
Back -- way back -- in the day, in the late 90s and early years of this millennium, Washington used to rank alongside Oregon in the high thirties out of fifty states for highest premiums, prompting the improbable rallying cry at the Department of Labor & Industries of that era, that the secret sauce of Washington's monopoly made us a "high benefits, low cost" state for workers' comp.
