Office of Independent Review?

To the Editor:

The North Dakota workforce of about 335,700 strong is having a major problem: Workforce Safety Insurance (WSI) and the in-house Office of Independent Review (OIR), which is not independent, but owned and run by WSI.

WSI feel they own North Dakota and its workforce. They own the Governor and the Insurance Commissioner, because they both look the other way and let WSI do what they want. To my painful dismay, they also seem to own the Republican Party in both the House and the Senate. If you get a copy of document 99264.01 which shows all legislation relating to workers’ compensation from 1995 to 2007, you will see that the Republican Party passed bills that give WSI whatever they wanted, plus more. They failed to pass almost every bill that would have helped the workforce of N.D. Our Republican congress has made WSI a monopoly by forcing employees and to have WSI as their insurance.

The workforce of N.D. is getting fed up with WSI and congress. They are starting to organize to change the laws, which not only favor WSI, but make it a monopoly as well. The N.D. Injured Workers Support Group has started a petition drive to get Congress to take WSI away from the private owners and put it back into the hands of the Governor. Make OIR independent, not owned and controlled by WSI.

The Support Group is holding a statewide petition drive from May 10 to 18., and one at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds in West Fargo, from June 13-15. For more information, call (701) 730-4488, or email . Remember that if you work, you are one injury away from having to deal with WSI. You can protect yourself by solving the problems with WSI before you are injured.

It is time for workers to take back our state from WSI and our representatives and senators. We can do this by obtaining the voting records of our local congressmen and women. These will show whether they voted for WSI or for us, the workforce. Next election we can remedy this problem. Remember, without us, the workers, there wouldn’t be any businesses.

Our elected representatives are supposed to work for us, not for WSI. North Dakota is our state.

Felix J. Volk
An injured N.D. worker
Fargo