Governor Rick Snyder signed major changes to employer paid benefits into law yesterday.
The changes will limit how much an injured worker can be compensated based on how much an insurance company thinks that worker could make at another job, among other things.
The new law will also make it more difficult for a person to collect jobless benefits.
State Representative and Democratic Whip Vicki Barnett has been a vocal opponent of the bill, and talks about some of her concerns in this interview with Michigan Radio's Jennifer White.
Barnett says, "...the workers comp bill, in particular, also has some major changes to what happens to families when there is a worker that is killed on the job. The caretaker spouse who use to be protected with some kind of benefit payment, will now be forced into work, if he or she was raising the children, and the kids are cut off at age 16. Those changes were also made in this bill."
She says GOP leader came into office promising to create jobs, but have not delivered on that promise.
"What we have is attack, after attack on seniors with the new pension tax, on unemployed workers with the new unemployment bill, on injured workers with the workers compensation bill and all workers with the change of unemployment from 26 to 20 weeks. This does not create a single job," Barnett says.
