Re: “Labor seeks to overhaul workers’ comp laws” (April 21, Page A1):

I’ve been a Maine Workers’ Compensation Board member for 16 of the last 18 years, representing the business community, the longest-serving member since the board’s 1992 inception, and the only one appointed by independent, Democratic and Republican governors.

For many years the Maine workers’ compensation system could best be described as the political equivalent of professional wrestling. The gridlock so frustrated then-Gov. John Baldacci that he signed legislation calling for the governor to appoint the executive director as a tie-breaker when the views of the three labor and three business representatives could not be reconciled.

Since the 1992 reform act, workers’ comp as a controversial topic in Maine dropped below the radar screen. Comp costs dropped from the nation’s most expensive, to higher than but closer to the national average. Workplace safety improved and the system became more efficient.

Over the past eight years, under then-Executive Director Paul Sighinolfi and in collaboration with both business and labor representatives, efficiencies were adopted to remove some of the system’s most contentious aspects, benefiting both employees and employers.

It is no secret that in her quest for the Blaine House, Janet Mills received enormous support from the labor unions and their attorneys. After the election, she purposely chose “to take a different direction” on workers’ compensation (her words to Sighinolfi, he told me) and replaced the executive director, triggering a 180-degree change of philosophy and opening the floodgates to nearly 30 proposed bills, most of which would overturn or weaken system reforms and every one of which would add to system costs.

Because workers’ comp premiums are not considered “taxes,” passage of these bills will burden Maine businesses with higher costs and still honor Mills’ no-tax-increase campaign pledge.

The labor unions delivered for Mills, and now they’re demanding a return on that investment. That return will be paid by every consumer as well as by the dwindling number of commercial, retail, industrial and manufacturing businesses in Maine.

Gary Koocher

Portland