The Bears aren’t
the only professional sports’ team seeking relief from workers’ comp
costs. The Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and
White Sox have joined in in trying to get legislation passed in
Springfield. Given the state of affairs
in our state capitol, fat chance.
The problem
isn’t that ex-athletes can file until the age of 67, as I thought last week;
it’s that they can get paid in some cases to that age. This is how the Sun-Times says it works: If an athlete files after suffering a serious
or career-ending injury, he—because there can never be a she as long as a
certain mindset persists—can be eligible for a special payment that comes out
to $55,900 a year, to normal retirement age.
None of the above-mentioned organizations wants to be on the hook for
that kind of money. They want the
retirement age for affected athletes to be dropped from 67 to 35.
Consider that our
pro teams can sell seat licenses, charge God-knows-what for a beer and a brat
and dole out special club memberships for the well-heeled (isn’t that right,
Tom Ricketts?) But heaven forbid they be
made to pay for the cost of an employee’s injury. Why, the Cubs are only worth $2.2 billion and
the Bears a mere $2.7 billion. We don’t
want them to go bankrupt because some fool blew out an elbow or a knee, now do
we?
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