The State appropriates a fund of $150,000 to administer the act for two years. The risks are classified and rates assessed, and quarterly payments called for as required.
The statistical records being made and knowledge gained by the Commission in administering this act will be invaluable and it has already brought to the attention of loggers, lumbermen and all manufacturers the loss of life and limb incidental to the business, the benefits of factory inspection as a further prevention and the fixing of responsibility as to accidents.
I secured from the Commission the attached reports, which I shall not read in detail, but which show detailed comparisons and some interesting figures. (See reports, A, B and C, appended to this paper.)
Our commissioners have been called on many times to address conventions and congresses regarding the law, and I can best state their views by quoting from an address of Commissioner Pratt at our recent Logging Congress, and from a statement issued by Commissioner Wallace. Commissioner Pratt says in part:
“The Workman’s Compensation Act has been in operation now for nine months, and those of you who are actively in business in the State of Washington are more or less familiar with its results.
“In the first place, it is compulsory alike on the employer and employe. The employer has to pay into the accident fund a sum of money based upon a percentage of his payrolls, and the employe must accept the awards of the Commission allowed for work accidents in lieu of his right to sue at common law, subject, of course, to a right of appeal on the amount awarded.
“All the extra hazardous industries of the State are divided into forty-seven classes, each class with a fund of its own, and the accidents arising in that class shall be a drain only upon that fund. As the payments for work accidents deplete the fund in each class it provides for monthly assessments to be made to recoup each class. The payments out of these funds are only for work accidents, all the cost of the administration of the law being paid out of the general taxes of the State. For the first twenty-two months of its operation an appropriation of $150,000 was made.
“It is unlawful for the employer to deduct any portion of the premium paid into the accident fund out of the wages of the employe. It provides for penalizing any establishment which from poor or careless management is unduly hazardous by raising its rate. If an employer, besides employing men in extra hazardous employment, employs men in non-hazardous employment, the premium shall be paid only the payrolls of the extra hazardous work, but the employer and the non-hazardous employe may elect to come under the act and both shall receive the benefits of the act.
“As each class must pay for only such accidents arising in that class, and as assessments are made only as the funds of that class are depleted, there are but two things that govern the cost of this insurance: the amount of the awards and the number and seriousness of the accidents.
“As I have said, the classes that the loggers and lumbermen are most interested in are seven, ten and twenty-nine.