Weekly interest and loan rates | Home values Northwest stock contest 2004 | Consumer affairs

California governor, Costco join forces to push for workers' comp changes

By Peter Nicholas and Joe Mathews
Los Angeles Times

	BRIAN VANDER BRUG / AP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gathers signatures at a Costco store in Burbank, Calif., for a ballot initiative to reform workers' compensation in the state.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

To the surprise of many customers, he was at a Costco store in Burbank on Monday shopping not for bargains, but for signatures to place on the November ballot an initiative that would overhaul the state's $20 billion workers' compensation system that aids people injured on the job.

Trolling for signatures in shopping-mall parking lots is commonplace. What's unusual is the partnership between the governor of California and Issaquah-based Costco that allows him to market his political agenda in the aisles of a giant warehouse store and with the help of its paid staff.

"It's extremely unusual in California politics and probably could not be duplicated by anyone other than a celebrity politician," said Harvey Englander, a Los Angeles political consultant.

"I know when I visited a Costco right after this was announced, people were lining up to sign the petitions," he said. "Arnold brings to politics and government all the marketing skills that he learned from his career as a bodybuilder and actor."

Each day inside Costco's 98 stores in California, employees place a table by the entrance where signature-gatherers can talk to shoppers. While one employee staffs the table, others fan out through the store.

The Costco involvement prompted a complaint last week from the Teamsters union, which represents about 11,000 of Costco's California workers. The union has written to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer asking him to look into whether Costco was forcing its employees to engage in political activity.

Costco's signature gatherers are being paid their regular hourly wage, but they volunteer for the duty and have not been coerced, Costco said.

Business groups say California has some of the most liberal rules in the nation for determining how severe a workplace injury is and the amount of disability benefits a worker should get.

Schwarzenegger has proposed limiting how much doctors, pharmacies and clinics are paid under the program and imposing new restrictions on how job-injuries are evaluated.

He is using the petition drive to prod lawmakers to come up with a solution to revamp workers' comp.
 
For its part, Costco wants to reduce a workers' comp bill that costs its California stores $60 million a year, according to Bruce Greenwood, senior vice president for the company's Greater Los Angeles region.

While 40 percent of Costco employees work in California, the state accounts for 70 percent of Costco's total workers' comp costs.

In any event, the tactics appear to be working. Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez reached agreement yesterday on the last remaining major obstacle to overhauling the system.

Barring last-minute snags, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal greatly increases the likelihood that the Democratic-controlled Legislature will pass a workers' compensation reform bill, probably Friday, and prevent the ballot measure.

The legislative measure, which would then be signed by the Republican governor and could take effect immediately, aims to save employers billions of dollars on their workers' comp premiums.

Agreement on the last major obstacle in the workers' comp bill came after Nunez, a Democrat, said he had given up on his party's demand to put controls on workers' comp insurance rates.

Instead, the speaker agreed to a one-year study of the impact of the workers' comp reforms to make sure savings are passed along to employers, not pocketed by insurance companies.

Despite the legislative progress, Schwarzenegger continued gathering signatures to meet the Friday deadline to put the alternate plan on the November ballot, just in case.

So far, Schwarzenegger and Costco are working mightily to deliver for one another. Costco accounts for more than 18 percent of the 800,000 signatures the governor's forces have gathered to date.

Since March 21, the campaign committee that is promoting the workers' comp initiative has reported getting $127,895 in in-kind contributions from Costco.

And the governor's visits are a magnet for customers and TV camera crews, though Greenwood said the company isn't courting the attention. At the store in Burbank, Schwarzenegger was swarmed by shoppers wanting his autograph. He signed $20 bills, books and scraps of paper.

Angling to give the cameras the best possible shot, he held up a clipboard displaying his petitions and thanked Costco. "Costco has been a wonderful worker," he said Monday.

"A big hand for Costco!"

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company