AFL-CIO blasts workers' comp research group as tool of insurance industry

By Daniel Hays

The head of the nationally recognized Workers' Compensation Research Institute and a labor group official are in conflict over the direction and quality of the studies the WCRI undertakes.

The dispute broke into the open last month when Robert E. McGarrah Jr.–the AFL-CIO's coordinator for workers' compensation–sent a letter to WCRI Executive Director Richard A. Victor slamming the Cambridge, Mass.-based organization as a tool of the insurance industry.

The McGarrah letter said the AFL-CIO had concluded that “WCRI, like the insurance companies it depends upon for its financial support, operates to promote the interests of the workers' compensation insurance industry.”

According to Mr. McGarrah, “WCRI's board of directors and its Research Committee are almost entirely officers of the major insurance companies that sell workers' compensation insurance.”

He complained that the group, in studying state workers' comp systems, relies on insurance industry data that cannot be publicly disclosed, has failed to study effects of insurance pricing and administration of workers' comp, and has a flawed peer review process.

Mr. McGarrah said in an interview that the AFL-CIO is considering withdrawing from WCRI activity because it focuses on managed care systems and fails to examine other cost-efficient systems that can provide workers with better treatment.

Mr. Victor in response sent a letter saying he hoped the labor group did not intend to end talks concerning possible research ideas, and defended WCRI as the only organization studying both workers' comp system costs and worker treatment.

Mr. Victor wrote Mr. McGarrah that he was perplexed because Art Wilcox, a New York AFL-CIO representative, had sent a list of topics for research, and he was “looking forward to your reactions to them.”

Mr. Victor said he and his colleagues wanted to continue discussions and hoped Mr. McGarrah's letter was not intended to end them. The WCRI, he said, places a high value on diversity of membership, including state labor organizations.

According to Mr. Victor, WCRI has “completed about 5,000 interviews with injured workers. No other organization has set this priority and accomplished it.”

Mr. Victor cited research that monitors the timeliness of payments to injured workers, and wrote that WCRI “is particularly proud of its efforts to focus on how the system affects workers.”

He added that studies are “only published if peer reviewers, not WCRI members or management, sign off.” He attached letters from executives with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions attesting to the honesty and rigor of the group's research.

“We will continue to conduct studies on both the cost to employers and the outcomes experienced by injured workers,” he said. “We hope that we will continue to have input from organized labor on both our research agenda and specific studies.”

Mr. McGarrah said he would continue to meet with Mr. Victor, noting they are colleagues on the National Academy of Social Insurance's workers' comp insurance committee, but said he would be writing Mr. Victor that his reply is unresponsive to his concerns. “The WCRI needs to broaden its focus to the entire system of workers' compensation, which includes the pricing of the product,” he said.

Mr. McGarrah said that Mr. Victor has kept labor involvement in WCRI at a low level “that's inconsequential and failed to give it a role on the group's board of directors or research committee.”

WCRI, he complained, has ignored a variety of medical treatment studies such as that done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He said WCRI's research is “conventional and behind the times.”

According to a WCRI fact sheet, the group does not look at workers' comp pricing because it has not built the technical expertise required due to the fact the group “has limited resources and sees no reason to duplicate expertise resident elsewhere.”

Callouts, no mugs:

Point:

“WCRI, like the insurance companies it depends upon for its financial support, operates to promote the interests of the workers' compensation insurance industry.”

Robert E. McGarrah Jr.

WC Coordinator, AFL-CIO

Counterpoint:

“[Studies are] only published if peer reviewers, not WCRI members or management, sign off…We hope that we will continue to have input from organized labor on both our research agenda and specific studies.”

Richard A. Victor

WCRI Executive Director

Special Reports /

WCRI Clashes With Labor Over Integrity

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