Injured Maine workers, their families and supporters gathered today in the Hall of Flags to speak out against proposed legislation that would significantly weaken Maine’s Workers Compensation system.

Originally slated to be a public hearing on LD 1571, submitted last session by Rep. Andre Cushing and carried over to this session, the Labor CRED Committee on Friday instead took up consideration of a similar bill to re-vamp the system based on a report by Workers’ Compensation Board Chair Paul Sighinolfi.

“While the new committee bill does not include some of the terrible provisions that were in the original LD 1571, the bill considered today makes significant, harmful changes to workers’ compensation that would have devastating consequences for injured Maine workers and their families,” said Matt Schlobohm, Executive Director of the Maine AFL-CIO.

A number of injured Maine workers gathered before the hearing to speak out against the bill, and dozens more arrived later in the day to testify against the proposed legislation before the Labor CRED Committee.

Sherry Nadeau spoke at the press conference on behalf of her husband David, who could not attend due to the injuries he sustained when he was run over at work by his boss’ truck 9 years ago.

“My husband sustained debilitating injuries at the hands of his employer. My husband’s back was broken in two places, he had a concussion, the muscles in his stomach were ripped, he had a hernia and injured his elbow,” said Nadeau. “Over the past 9 years we have been abused repeatedly by the workers compensation insurance company and it continues today. My husband has been denied medication, the insurance company fails to send compensation checks and fails to pay medical bills,” she said.

Dean Harding of Oakland worked at the Sappi paper mill in Skowhegan for 21 years. He suffered a severe brain injury in 2010 in a bad accident at the mill.

“Until I was hurt, I didn’t realize how broken the system is. This is not a fair system whatsoever,” Harding said.

The proposed bill would not only impact Maine workers with physical injuries, but with mental and emotional illness due to traumatic experiences on the job. Mike Scott, an Auburn Firefighter, spoke on behalf of workers in his industry who not only do tremendously dangerous physical work to protect and serve their communities, but sometimes suffer tremendously due to the psychological demands of being first responders on scenes of highly disturbing cases.

He recalled the story first responder Bill Fournier, who could not attend Friday due to illness but submitted written testimony. Fournier was the Auburn police officer who arrived on the scene when 4 year old Angela Palmer was murdered by her parents by being burned alive in an oven.

Under the proposed legislation, first responders or others who witness and deal with devastating situations like this one could be kicked off workers’ compensation after a certain amount of time even if they were still unable to return to work due to their emotional and psychological conditions (as well as physical conditions).

Fournier himself testified last year against a bill (LD 1065) that would have removed emotional, psychiatric and mental factors from consideration of longer term workers’ compensation benefits.  That bill was unanimously killed by the Committee and legislators apologized that it was ever introduced.  The proposed legislation considered Friday, while a different bill, would have essentially the same impact of denying long term disability for serious emotional, psychiatric and mental conditions.

Father Frank Morin of the Saint Michael Parish of the Catholic Church of Maine also spoke out against the proposed changes.