What accounts for the close similarity between some workers’ compensation systems?

Over the last several years, I have been looking early workers’ compensation systems in North America.  The striking surge in workers’ compensation legislation among US states and Canadian provinces in the early decades of the twentieth century is evidence of a societal change that transcended party politics and established social convention. 

There is some debate as to which state or province had the first true workers’ compensation system.  Some cite Wisconsin as the first US “constitutional” workers’ compensation system to come into force.  In Canada, many point to Ontario while others, including Arthur Larson, cite British Columbia’s 1903 legislation as the first on this continent.

The first true compensation act adopted not only in Canada, but in North America and indeed the entire New World, was enacted in British Columbia on June 21, 1902 [Effective May 1, 1903]”Arthur Larson “Workers’ Compensation Reform – The Canadian Example”, Meredith Memorial  Lecture, 1987.

One confusion over which jurisdiction ranks first to have a workers’ compensation system depends on what you consider the starting date of the legislation.  You will note there is usually a gap between the passage of legislation and the effective date on which the first claim might be accepted.  This period is necessary to give life to the legislation.  Administrative bodies have to be created, administrators hired, office acquired, employers identified/enrolled (classified, assessed premiums, etc.), forms designed, systems established, and so on. 

Legislators then as now could “borrow” concepts and even copy wording from other jurisdictions.  You can see this when you look at early versions of legislation.  The identical wording of some sections of legislation may be found in states or provinces on opposite sides of the continent.  It stands to reason that forms to report injuries and start claims will ask similar questions; after all, the “who, what, where, when” questions are necessary regardless of the underlying legislation. What struck me as I looked back at the beginnings of workers’ compensation was the striking similarity in administrative structures and even forms between independent jurisdictions.  I still have no explicit answer that concretely  accounts for the similarities (including features such as design, questions asked, form numbers and colouring)  between “report of injury”  forms used in widely separated jurisdictions.  The obvious answer is that the administrative structures and processes were copied, however, there is no obvious answer as to how exactly that worked in most jurisdictions. 

Part of the answer may arise from the work of people like Frank Webster Hinsdale.  Hinsdale was born in New York in 1862 and died in Vancouver in 1932 but moved around a lot between those years.  I found clippings from Washington state describing him as an entrepreneur, living in Washington and buying coal properties in British Columbia in 1909. In 1910 he was with the Olympic National Bank and then is reported as working for the Washington State Industrial Insurance Commission.  That state was just setting up its workers’ compensation system and it appears Hinsdale traveled much of the state, explaining to business and others how the system would work.  In 1911, he assumed the position of Chief Auditor for the Industrial Insurance Commission. 

The next record I could find of Hinsdale’s work was his testimony to the Ontario Royal Commission on Workmen’s Compensation in January 1913.   The minutes of his evidence before Sir William Meredith provide insight into the thinking behind workers’ compensation in Washington State.  Meredith was interested not just in the words that framed the legislation, but the processes and how things actually worked. Hinsdale provided his insight and the rationale behind certain practices. 

At one point in the testimony, Hinsdale is asked to comment on a common criticism of workers’ compensation, the idea that insurance pooled risk removes employer incentives towards safety.  Hinsdale responded: 

I cannot imagine why an employer who finds that his rate is increasing, or who is confronted with a demand for a contribution to the fund would not say to himself, ‘what causes all these accidents?’ I cannot imagine why he should not immediately want to install every safety device possible, and after he has installed them in his own place, I should think that he would require them to be installed in every other place.Meredith, Minutes of Evidence, Vol. 2: 286

By the end of 1913, Hinsdale was hired away from Washington to head up Oregon State’s implementation of workers’ compensation.  Skip ahead to 1916, and Hinsdale appears in British Columbia.  That province passed its new Workmen’s Compensation Act on May 26 1916 with an implementation date of January 1, 1917.  A newspaper report from July 2016 picks up the story:

WORKMEN S COMPENSATION EXPERT MR. FRANK W. HINSDALE, who, as Premier Bowser announced at Phoenix, has been engaged by the government to inaugurate the system under the new Workmen's Compensation Act, is said to be one of the greatest authorities on the continent on the administration of such legislation. He inaugurated the Washington administrative system as chief auditor and then did the same for Oregon.  He later inaugurated [the Ontario] system and then went to Halifax, where the Nova Scotia government has just brought a new act into force.
July 25, 1916 Vancouver Daily World from Vancouver, · Page 8

Hinsdale got right to work and the newspaper reports of the day quote him outlining his work:

...[O]n the day when the 'Workmen's Compensation Act' comes into force the whole machinery for the administration of the act must be moving……The mere enumeration of the names and addresses of these employers, with notes showing the nature and proper classification of their industries, or of the branch or departments of their business which would be within the scope of the act, is a work of considerable magnitude.

- Frank W. Hinsdale  (as quoted in The  Daily Colonist, Victoria, BC Sept 3, 1916 p. 3)

That term, “the machinery for the administration” of the workers’ compensation system reflects the thinking of the industrial age and the practicality of translating legislative action into workable processes.   I have no direct evidence that Hinsdale personally accounts for the many similarities one finds between across the jurisdictions he touched, but it seems likely that he and others like him account for many of the similarities we find that were there in the beginning and persist to the present day.             

Hinsdale stayed on in BC as Secretary to the Board.  The last reference I could find to his work was a note in the 1931 Annual Report which reports that notes “the late Actuary, Frank W. Hinsdale, F.C.A.S.” certified the financial actuarial evaluations to December 31, 1931. 

It is often said that workers’ compensation jurisdictions can learn from each other.  While true in principle and easy to say, no workers’ compensation system can learn anything from any other system without people like Frank W. Hinsdale facilitating that learning, sharing knowledge and passing on experiences.

Thanks, Frank. 

[Access to the documents cited above was provided by the Librarian, Secretary of State, Washington and the Librarian and library staff at WorkSafeBC, which also funded some some research into its early history].

[Note:  I would welcome more information on the setting up of workers' compensation systems after legislation and before implementation as well as copies of the first forms used in your jurisdiction].