A bill marking the initial step towards the establishment of state
accident and sick benefit insurance is pending in the Legislature of
Wisconsin. This is one of the first proposals of the kind submitted in
any state. Its insurance features are modelled after the English act.
The bill applies solely to vocational diseases. Both employer and
employe are to contribute toward the premiums. Single employes earning
less than $600 a year, who have someone dependent upon them, are
eligible to protection under the provisions of the bill; no person may
come under its terms who earns over $900. Persons earning $800 a year
must have two dependent upon them, and those earning $900 annually must
have four persons dependent upon them in order to come within the
proposed statute.
Employers are to be allowed to deduct 1 per cent of the wages of
employes and they must add to this sum one-half of 1 per cent of the pay
roll, the entire sum to be paid into a state insurance fund. When ill,
the employe is to receive 65 per cent of his wages during the period of
his illness, but for not more than twenty-six consecutive weeks nor more
than thirty-nine weeks in a single year. If the employe is sent to a
hospital, his regular wages are to be paid to him weekly. The State
Industrial Commission is empowered to enforce the provisions of the act
in the event of its passage.