Don't create workers' comp gravy train for firefighters.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 | 0

By the Detroit News editorial board

State Rep. Steve Tobocman doesn't hesitate when asked who is behind proposed legislation that practically guarantees workers' compensation payments to firefighters who are stricken with certain illnesses: The firefighters' union, the House majority leader says.

Not that we're surprised. Special interests, and particularly public-sector unions have enormous influence in Lansing, a fact directly connected to the increasing cost of government.

But if a lawmaker admits that a public-sector union generated a piece of legislation, it's probably a good reason to kill the bill.

Current workers' compensation law provides more than adequate protection for firefighters and other employees whose injuries and illnesses are job related.

Tobocman, a Democrat from Detroit, is joined by state Sen. Valde Garcia, R-Howell, in pushing companion bills that would guarantee workers' comp payments to firefighters for a wide range of cancers that may or may not be specifically job related.

The bills would eliminate the current process of requiring that claims be considered on a case-by-case basis and backed up with medical proof that connects the ailment to the job.

That's a reasonable standard, and one that has made Michigan a leader in workers' comp reform.

But Tobocman and Garcia want to shift the burden of proof from employee to the employer -- in this case, the taxpayers. With the exception of someone who was a "consistent smoker of cigarettes or other tobacco products" for five years before a claim is made, or an employee with a pre-existing condition, workers' comp boards would have to make payments to firefighters for respiratory tract, bladder, skin, brain, kidney, blood and lymphatic cancers.

Tobocman says the cost of such guarantees for firefighters who have been on the job for a minimum of only two years won't have much effect on local governments because "that hasn't been the case in other states."

A House Fiscal Agency report contradicts his claim.

"The bill will increase workers' compensation disability costs for airports, local units of government and state colleges and universities with fully paid fire departments," the report says.

How much is not yet known, but it could be significant. Every firefighter who comes down with one of the specified cancers would be virtually guaranteed workers' comp payments, regardless of other mitigating factors.

The bill will be paid by local communities already reeling from declining tax bases and state revenue sharing funds.

A firefighter made ill by the work he or she does in service to the public should be fairly compensated. But it shouldn't be assumed that every illness that afflicts a firefighter is the fault of the job.

This editorial appeared in the Detroit News on Tuesday.