Council of Trade UnionsWednesday 22 December 2010, 11:32PM
21 December
In announcing its 'in-principle' decision to allow employers to
choose between ACC and private insurers the Government is ignoring
the evidence, said the CTU today.
CTU President Helen Kelly said: "There are many reasons to
oppose this privatisation of our wonderful scheme. Despite the
Minister's comments about solvency requirements for private
insurers these never have and never will prevent a private business
from going broke, as the recent spate of insurance firm collapses
proves. Workers that experienced the last time ACC was privatised
had horror stories of claims being denied and of long delays in
payments. Employers and insurers had a considerable incentive to
collaborate in order to deny liability."
"Despite the Minister's comments about solvency requirements for
private insurers these never have and never will prevent a private
business from going broke, as the recent spate of insurance firm
collapses proves."
"There is also a real risk that private insurance will pick up
all the 'safe' business while ACC is left to cover all the most
dangerous industries and bear the liabilities for them."
"This has all the hallmarks of a manufactured crisis when in
fact in the last year ACC revenue was over one billion dollars more
than it spent on claims."
"ACC is about social insurance and to treat it as a private
insurance model will, in the end, undermine the entire basis of the
ACC scheme."
Helen Kelly said that the Government is shifting the burden more
and more on to workers and their families. This is demonstrated by
changes already introduced to ACC such as exclusion of some people
with hearing loss, unfairly requiring accident victims to return to
work for any job they are assessed as able to do rather than a
similar job to the one they were in at the time of the accident,
and 'experience rating' which will encourage some employers to
cover up workplace accidents. All this comes on top of anti-worker
legislation such as removing the right of appeal against unfair
dismissal in the first 90 days at work, and restrictions on rights
to meal and refreshment breaks.