The Connecticut labor news., 1923-01-05

SCheduleS expressed mot m percent ages of wages or of earning capacity, but in weeks of compensation. Our legislatures have so1erlnly enacted, if not precisely that lost hand shall grow again in I5o weeks, at least that compensation therefor shall terminate at the end of that time. Such pro- visions disregard the essential feature of Workmen's Compensation; that between indemnity and wage loss.
 Still less excusable Is the Well-nigh universal failure to provide adequate medical, surgical, and hospital care, to say nothing of such restraining as might benefit the crippled worker. On every social ground it is highly ex- pedient that those who are incapac- itated by accident or disease should be restored as speedily and complete ly as may be to industrial usefulness. Yet most states require medical care only for 30 60, or 90 days after the injury, and only within low none tary limit-$Ioo or $2oo. Whatsoever Is more than this cometh of charity, or from the shrewd calcualtion that it may be cheaper to operate than to pay compensation for a permanent disability. Even this last incentive is less effective than it ought to be, be- cause of the limited compensation for permanent injuries. Little wonder that no systematic effort has any where been made to rehabilitate in dustrial cripples. Employers have no incentive so to do.
 Taken on the whole, compensation in the United States probably does not exceed one-fourth of the pecun- iary cost of those injuries which the compensation laws profess to cover. Having regard to the excluded classes of wage workers and the excluded catagories of injury, it is well within the facts to say that fo1r-ffths of the direct economic loss incident to work injuries still falls upon the individual victims and their families. We have given much lip service to the prin- ciple of industrial responsibility but our practice has fallen far short of our professions.
 By the same token, prevention is much short of what would be attained under an adequate scale of benefits. Tn Pennsylvania alone there have been sixteen thousand deaths and more than one million disabling injuries by industrial accident within the space of six years. That vast number of these accidents were preventabe IS known to every engineer. But effeC- tive safety engineering costs much money Coal mine entries must be widened electric voltages reduced, mine cars equipped with brakes, road bed and rolling stock improved, more and better timber set, more inspec- tions made, stricter discipline en- forced. To reduce the fatality rate from three Ot two per million tons of coal is perfectly feasible, but when the saving represents only One-quarter cent per ton it does not pay. If the average cost per death were raised from ,$2, 500 to $Io,ooo rRuch would beconie practical which is now deem ed visionary.
 Something less than full compensa- ton for temporary injuries is justified on social grounds. Human nature be- ing what it is, much malingering tempt to pay full wages during dis ability Probably two-thirds of the actual wage-loss-the nominal per centage specified in many compensa ton acts-is not unreasonable. So, too, a moderate waiting period is jus tifable on grounds of administrative cost But there is no economic jus tification for a maximum rate or a maximum amount less than two thirds of actual wage-loss, nor for waiting period of more than one week, nor for the exclusion of occu- pational disease. Still less is there any warrant in economics or equity for cutting off compensation before disability has ceased or dependency terminated. Least of all can the com munity afford to deny full therapeutic aid to the victims of industrial in jury.
 The excuse advanced for a scale of benefits confessedly adequate-that
 industry cannot bear the burden-1s founded on mis apprehension. Com, pensation equal to two-thirds of total wage-loss plus full therapeutic care for all industrial injuries would cer- tainly not cost more than 10 cents the ton of bituminous coal nor add more than one cent to the cost ot 0ro of choac Tor rnnct