Business Council statement on Governor’s call for Workers’ Comp Reform

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11
Jan
2017

ALBANY, N.Y.—“The Business Council is pleased to see the administration recognize the critical need for significant reform to the state’s broken workers’ compensation system,” said Heather C. Briccetti, Esq., president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State, Inc. “To start, the administration can and should immediately and unilaterally promulgate the updated Scheduled Loss of Use (SLU) guidelines completed by the Workers’ Compensation Board. This action would guarantee that workers receive the benefit of the most up-to-date medical care, while at the same time significantly reducing employer costs. Doing so would also send a strong signal to the state’s workers and business community that the administration is serious about addressing this pressing issue.”

For background:

From p.151 of the Governor’s State of the State book

Proposal: Continue Common Sense Workers’ Compensation Reform
New York’s workers’ compensation program delivers medical and lost wage benefits to thousands of injured workers a year. Since taking office, Governor Cuomo has led the effort to build a more responsive and efficient workers’ compensation system that cares for workers without overburdening businesses. From enacting the Business Relief Act—which cut assessments on employers, raised the minimum benefit for workers, and helped resolve the defaulted group trust crisis—to protecting the World Trade Center workers who performed rescue, recovery and clean-up in the year after 9/11, Governor Cuomo has made workers’ compensation reform a reality.

However, businesses and injured workers face continuing frustration with a system they feel is needlessly complicated and too expensive. To address these concerns, the Governor established and is actively supporting the Workers’ Compensation Board’s Business Process Re-engineering Program, a multi-year effort to better serve stakeholders and reduce friction costs by improving customer service and leveraging state-of-the-art technology. Governor Cuomo believes that more can be done and is calling on both business and labor to come together and work with him on legislation that will deliver a workers’ compensation system that works for everyone.