NZ Herald Opinion piece on ACC ‘presumptive schedule’ occupational diseases list

NZ Herald Opinion Pages Contribution from Ross Wilson
President, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

Paul Jarvie from the Employers and Manufacturers Association Northern (Herald 1.11.06) tells us that the ACC scheme is the best in the world for employees, but suggests employers get a rough deal. 

The EMA is concerned about the financial impact on businesses from a government proposal to add 25 new occupational diseases and conditions to an ACC ‘presumptive schedule’. Cover is given for a listed disease if ACC is satisfied that the person has the disease and the exposure to the corresponding agent occurred at work.

ACC provides cover for people with occupational diseases either through this list of specific work related diseases (in Schedule 2 of the Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation Act), or through a separate three-step test where the burden of proof is on the worker.

After reading Paul Jarvie’s piece, you might be forgiven for thinking that employers are carrying an unreasonable burden in compensating employees who are exposed to disease and injury at work, and are bracing themselves for the next big hit.

Where Jarvie’s analysis falls short though is in his failure to acknowledge that it is workers, not employers, who are already bearing the brunt of occupational disease.

This has been highlighted by the National Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee, which has published a series of reports documenting the sorry case of occupational injury, disease and death in New Zealand. 

One of the committee’s recent reports focused on the significant under compensation of occupational disease and injury.  The NOHSAC report provided cogent evidence of the disproportionate allocation of the cost of occupational disease in New Zealand; 47% of the financial costs on each of workers and society (i.e. about 94% in total) and less than 6% on employers. 

NOHSAC further estimates that the full cost of occupational disease and injury (including suffering and premature death) totals $20.9 billion annually, and that only 2% of these total costs are compensated by government agencies such as ACC and Work & Income.

NOHSAC’s findings, while alarming, came as little surprise to unions.  The report supports long expressed union concerns that the costs of workplace disease and injury are born largely by injured workers and their families. 

The committee has previously highlighted that up to 1000 New Zealanders die each year from work-related diseases, and there are up to 20,000 new cases of work-related disease annually.  Clearly, this is not a minor problem.

So what has that got to do with the government’s consultation on whether to add another 25 diseases and conditions to the presumptive schedule? I would assert “quite a lot” if not “everything”.

The underlying issue is what proportion of the loss of workplace injury and disease is going to be born by the social insurance arrangements (ACC), what proportion by the employer, and what proportion by the injured worker and his or her family.

The CTU welcomes a broadening of the coverage of occupational diseases covered under Schedule 2 as a step towards better recognition of what has long been the 'Cinderella' of our ACC scheme. 

The addition of 25 new occupational diseases to the presumptive schedule will lessen the burden of proof on workers who suffer occupational diseases when there is a clear evidential link between their illness and their work. 

In practice, the three-step test for diseases not on the presumptive schedule, and the way it has been administered, has tended to place an unduly high burden on the claimant to prove the work exposure as the causative link.  And I am sure that that is why we have, apart from occupational deafness, only a handful of occupational disease cases accepted by the ACC scheme each year.

The existence of the diseases on the schedule will also hopefully raise awareness - in the medical profession, in workplaces, and among the public generally. 

We have a situation where awareness of occupational disease is very low, with many in the public and even among the medical profession being unaware that there is ACC cover for occupational disease.

We see this proposal as an incremental, but important, step in what we hope will be an ongoing process towards ensuring that workers (both as individuals and as part of their families) don’t continue to carry a demonstrably disproportionate, and unfair, share of the burden of cost of occupational disease in New Zealand.

Employers have successfully externalised their costs, and I would hope that they would share the CTU view that a far greater portion of the cost currently falling on workers should be carried by the social insurance scheme, ACC, rather than the burden falling primarily on workers and their families.

Ends.  This article was printed in the NZ Herald on Wednesday December 6 2006.