Victory for Workers' Comp.

• Author: Ervin, Mike
• Position: Strict new Ohio workers compensation law overturned by grassroots labor campaign; ballot referendum rescinds law by 57 to 43% margin - On The Line - Brief Article

Columbus, Ohio

Ohio activists recently beat back regressive changes in workers'-compensation laws.

A bill Governor George Voinovich signed into law in April would have closed off public access to state health-and-safety reports on companies. And it would have made it hard for workers to prove they were permanently disabled.

"The purpose was to set up standards that couldn't be met," says Esther Weissman, a workers' comp lawyer in Cleveland.

Ralph Nader said the law set "a new standard for cruel and callous treatment of injured workers. Former Senator Howard Metzenbaum said it would "raid workers' benefits in order to transfer funds to already overstuffed corporate coffers."

To rescind the law, labor supporters collected more than 200,000 signatures calling for a referendum.

The result was a bruising political brawl. On one side was the ad-hoc Committee to Stop Corporate Attacks on Injured Workers. It included local unions like the United Auto Workers, the AFL-CIO, and the Ohio chapters of the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, and...