Employers’ liability on compo. attacked

Press, 4 September 1980, Page 9

Employers’ liability on compo. attacked

PA Wellington Workers in New Zealand could receive 48 per cent less from the Accident Compensation Commission if the .recommendations of the Quigley committee on accident compensation are implemented, according to the president of the Federation of Labour, (Mr W. J. Knox). He says that the recommended changes are just one more example of the National Government’s policy of enriching multinational insurance- companies at the expense of New Zealand workers. “The Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Quigley)

and his private enterprise cohorts are obviously appallingly ignorant of the aims and operations involved in the accident compensation scheme as devised by the Woodhouse Commission,” said Mr Knox.

“That scheme was not designed to make profits for the Government to redistribute to the rich. It was designed to protect workers from the burden of sudden individual losses when their ability to contribute to the general welfare by their work has been interrupted by physical incapacity. “The changes recommended by the Quigley committee constitute a breach of faith with workers who exchanged their inadequate common law rights in 1972 for a comprehensive compensation scheme. Now the Government has taken away the benefits of a comprehensive community scheme without even giving workers back their common law rights. “The substance of these changes is to make most accidents fall outside _ the scope of the Accident

Compensation Commission and therefore to enrich private insurance companies.” Mr Knox called on the Government to reconvene the Woodhouse Commissiori to assess the scheme “properly” in terms of people and their needs, not figures on a balance sheet. By changing the scheme from a funded scheme to a “pay as you go” scheme the commission, might need to collect $24 million less from employers, said Mr Knox. He said it must be remembered that under the previous workers compensation scheme, a worker could also sue a negligent boss for much more than his wages. ' T “First the accident compensation scheme removes the’right to sue and cuts an employers’ liability back to a vzeek’s wages — and now the Quigley committee wants to drop the employers’ liability further back to 80 per cent of wages,” he said. “The Government is in fact slowly removing the employers’ liability for accidents in the workplace.”