The Insider: Industry alleges fiddling with workers' comp

HOW MUCH YOU WANNA PAY? The director of Washington's Department of Labor & Industries recently suggested that next year's increase in workers' compensation rates will be 4 to 6 percent.

The Building Industry Association of Washington, one of the fiercest critics of how L&I runs the workers' comp system, says that's too low.

Huh?

The BIAW said in a press release last week that L&I is deliberately holding down the rate increase and dipping into contingency reserves to make the numbers work, in order to boost Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire and undercut the trade group's initiative to the Legislature to make changes in the workers' comp system. It charges that L&I will have to come up with a much bigger increase next year to make up the shortfall.

A spokesman for the department says Director Paul Trause suggested the range of increases based on what would be needed to cover inflation of wages and health care costs. The spokesman said the suggestion is based in part on some favorable trends in medical expenses and claims processing. But a formal recommendation won't be made until more data are collected on claims on the fund.

Workers' comp hasn't been a big issue so far in the race for governor, but it could be by the time the Legislature rolls back into Olympia next January. Both the BIAW and the Washington State Labor Council, not exactly the best buddies, are pushing initiatives on changing workers' comp.

TARDY ON THE DUES: TechNet CEO Rick White, the former Perkins Coie attorney who served in Congress from 1995 to 1998, can't practice law in the state anymore because he forgot to pay his bar dues.

"I let it get behind," said White, who joined TechNet in January 2001. "I wasn't too diligent about it."

As the leader of a powerful high-tech lobbying group, the former Republican congressman doesn't necessarily need to keep current with the Washington Bar Association. But White said he plans to get reinstated -- including paying back dues -- soon.

"I don't want to have to take the bar again if I decide to practice law," he said.

White, who attended the Republican National Convention last week with his 12-year-old son, said it is difficult to predict which way the technology community is leaning in the upcoming presidential election.

"It is split down the middle," said White, whose organization represents more than 150 high-tech CEOs. "Technology issues usually don't follow partisan lines."

SOME LOVE FOR WAMU: Washington Mutual Inc. has been beaten up in the national business and investment press lately because of woes in its mortgage business and its disappointing earnings. But now comes Gene Marcial's "Inside Wall Street" column in the Sept. 13 edition of Business Week. Marcial suggests that Wamu is drawing interest from value investors such as John Maloney of M&R Capital Management. Maloney, who sold Wamu when it was trading at $45 (it's been in the high $30s lately) calls value investing "buying tormented stocks that have great chances of recovering from their grief." Maloney sees a price of $44 a share in a year as Wamu fixes its mortgage banking problems.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, OUTSOURCING: A Boeing machinist and a former Seattle-area software tester are featured in a documentary film called "American Jobs" being released on DVD today.

WashTech, a Seattle labor organization that has been highly critical of overseas outsourcing, also is prominently featured. The DVD is available for $14.95 at www.americanjobsfilm.com

Charles Craft, who has worked at Boeing for 18 years, tells how the aerospace company shipped some work to Turkey. Myra Bronstein, who lost her job at Bellevue-based WatchMark- Comnitel, describes the humiliation of training her Indian replacements.

Filmed with a Panasonic digital camera and edited with an Apple laptop, director Greg Spotts visited more than a dozen cities over six months as he tried to tell the complex story of overseas outsourcing.

"American Jobs" will make its Seattle premiere on Sept. 13 at Town Hall.

P-I reporters Christine Frey, Bill Virgin, John Cook contributed to this edition of The Insider, the P-I business staff's weekly compendium of quips, quotes, observations, asides, tidbits, weird facts and gossip.

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