This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Rep. Mike Morley's attempt to help employers get injured workers kicked off the workers' compensation insurance program got a cool reception from a state advisory committee overseeing workers' compensation issues.
The Spanish Fork Republican, who is a construction company owner, brought his HB384 to the Utah Labor Commission's Workers Comp Advisory Committee for a favorable recommendation to the Legislature, but only got a 5-5 vote Monday.
Employer-based groups backing the bill have clashed on the issue with advocates for the working class who oppose it. The bill creates avenues for companies to avoid liability if certain workers get hurt on the job.
Morley's construction industry, by the way, is one of the industries most prone to injuries on the job.
His bill would make ineligible for workers' compensation benefits or disability payments an injured employee who was convicted of a crime, like being in the country illegally, for example. (The construction industry hires a lot of undocumented workers, by the way.)
The proposal flies in the face of five Supreme Court decisions in other states, the latest being in South Carolina, where the court held such a law would encourage employers to hire undocumented workers since they wouldn't have the burden of insuring them because they wouldn't be eligible for workers' compensation.
Morley's bill also would allow a company to fire ''for cause'' an injured worker getting workers' compensation benefits at the time.
That counters a 2006 Utah Supreme Court decision that said La-Z-Boy could not fire a worker while she was getting workers' compensation payments for injuries on the job.
Wishful thinking? For those of you who were planning to attend a wild bash at Brigham Young University last night after reading The Salt Lake Tribune's daily events calendar, sorry if we prompted you to go to Provo for nothing.
The calendar item announced the Annual Planned Parenthood Dinner, featuring speaker Janet Reno, at the Marriott Center on Brigham Young University's campus, with "cocktails at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m."
Well, no cocktails at BYU. You still can't even get a Diet Coke there. The dinner actually took place at a Marriott Hotel in Salt Lake City.
Wild ride on UTA: Westbound commuters on their way home around 5:30 p.m. Monday got a little shock when the driver of a UTA bus, number 9732, didn't want to wait for the backed up traffic at 4100 South to get into the left turn lane onto Redwood Road.
The driver veered onto the center median to pass the traffic and get into the turn lane. One witness said she feared the rocking bus would actually topple onto one or more of the cars it passed.
But it didn't.