Workers' compensation law could bankrupt small contractors, family businesses

In recent days, Tennessee House Speaker Kent Williams sent out a letter which broached the idea of a special session to deal with Workers' Compensation reform in light of the reality that Public Chapter 1041 will go into effect on January 1st:

I do not know of any consensus among members for a special session and am unaware that any member has spoken directly with the Governor. As most members know the typical method of convening a special session is to have the Governor issue the call. I am led to believe that members do not want a special session if the issue can be addressed when we return in January; some members would prefer an early December Special Session if one was necessary and some would prefer a mid-December special session, again only if one was necessary.

 

Forget revising this bill, the legislation should be scrapped completely. Allow me to admit a bias: If Public Chapter 1041 is not repealed in its totality, my father-in-law could lose his roofing business and everything that he has worked his whole life for. He has worked for himself for most of his adult life, and certainly for as long as I have known him. His small metal roofing crews have included his son and himself, and sometimes a third person. If this legislation is allowed to pass without alteration or repeal, I think the original sponsor of the bill and all those members who voted for it should have to explain to him how it is that from now on, he will lose nearly his entire profit for the year paying for Workers' Compensation insurance. After all, his work is seasonal and we have entered the slow time of year. That means that he is now reduced to living off of his profits for the year until spring. Next winter there may not be profits for him to live off of because of this legislative stupidity.

 

 

I have a degree in political science and I have been involved in political campaigns either actively or passively (writing about them) since I was 16 and I am now 33 years old. I have taken a very proactive role in dealing with legislative matters what are important to me or impact me because, for lack of better words, I like this stuff and I am a political nerd, and I've learned over the years how to pull levers. Most people don't have that interest, and that is not abnormal-we political nerds are the abnormal folks. As a result, most Tennesseans are consumed with other things besides politics and my father-in-law is no exception. Since weighty political questions always fall to me at the Sunday dinner table, perhaps the original sponsor of this bill can help me. See, for all of my knowledge of political minutaie, I am at a loss to explain to him why it is he may lose his business because someone in Nashville decided that he should be treated the same as Mega Construction Company.

 

 I really don't have the words to describe to my father-in-law how the retirement he has been slowly saving for so that he can rest his weary bones-literally-might not come because he'll have to find another way to pay his bills since he can't do what he has done all of his life-he won't be able to afford to. I can't explain that in words he will understand in a way that sounds good or is good. Perhaps the chief sponsor can do a much better job than me putting into words what kind of stupid pill he took when he dreamed this bill up. Lobbyists do play a useful role in Nashville, but this is a classic example of what happens when legislators do nothing but listen to lobbyists while completely abandoning the common sense God gave them. More from Mumpower's note: 

 

 

While I am not sure that this rises to the emergency status that should necessitate a special session, and could be repealed retroactively during the first week of the new legislative session in January, if it is determined that the General Assembly must be convened in order to purge the lawbooks of this foolishness, justice would dictate that those members who were present and voted no on the original bill which would ultimately become Public Chapter 1041 should have their per diem covered, while the chief sponsor of the original bill should be made to cover everyone else's per diem out of his own pocket.

 

No, it won't happen that way and the law and rules of the House do not provide for such a measure, but it ought to.

 

As for the bill, perhaps some common sense will prevail and it will be repealed, either now or in January.