I've been in business 2 years and would like to continue. Paying employees a decent wage, plus taxes and a 16 percent Workers' Comp premium is increasingly difficult for me. Rick Paugh started Pro Print Professional Printers nine years ago in downtown Charleston. Today, he has seven workers. They need to start making everybody pay.
Some big companies owe hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If I didn't pay, I wouldn't be in business. I don't mind paying my share. For years, the fund suffered from mismanagement, misinformation and back-room deals. For years, some employers cheated the fund out of hundreds of millions of dollars. By 1995, the rate was 17.5 times the national average.