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"Like most everyone, I love to be needed, to be useful.
When I moved here from Albany in 1990, it soon became apparent
that local injured workers needed an advocate. There were scads
of lawyers representing insurance companies in workers compensation
cases, but pitifully few on the workers side."
And so Mary Jo Long, who calls herself "a people's lawyer,"
found her calling and began to focus her law practice on injured
workers and other disabled people who weren't getting their benefits.
Long, who holds a Masters degree in political science from Washington
University (1972) and a law degree from New York University (1977),
had previously represented poor people in Brooklyn Legal Services
(1977-79), taught at Case Western Reserve Law School (1980-83)
and was a partner in the progressive Albany law firm of Walter,
Thayer, Long & Mishler (1984-90).
Helping people navigate the shoals of worker's compensation
law was satisfying in terms of helping people regain financial
stability while dealing with their disabilities. But it was frustrating.
"The work environment of the eighties and nineties -- the
repetitive motions, the chemical stew, the shiftwork stress --
produced new kinds of injuries that insurance companies didn't
want to pay for. And the system was slower in dealing with these
problems as the insurance companies balked and the state compensation
system grew more responsive to the concerns of the insurance
companies instead of the needs of the injured workers. The enormous
energies misspent on litigation were not being spent on medical
care, neither prevention nor prompt treatment. I became convinced
that a national universal health care system is the cheapest
and most humane solution to the tragedy of disability and workplace
injury."
But neither major party would advocate what was needed. "Even
the 1992 Clinton plan was designed around the guaranteed profits
of the insurance companies, a kind of cost plus plan. Only the
Green Party has consistently stood for what every other industrialized
country has. And that's why I'm giving my all to build the party
here in New York State."
The current drive for workers compensation "reform,"
led by State Senate Republicans, aims not to improve outcomes
for people injured at work, but to lower employer premiums without
reducing insurance company profits. Like tort "reforms"
that reduce corporate accountability for injurious products,
bankruptcy "reforms" written by credit card companies,
and regulatory "reforms" written by utilities, all
the changes being implemented on state and federal levels seek
to protect "investor" interests over the public good.
"A state government fixated on re-electing itself by
servicing its corporate contributors has no time or money for
the people's needs: health care, education, daycare, economic
renewal, food safety, and environmental health," Long says.
"And September 11th has become an excuse for more tax giveaways
and more government secrecy."
Long is past president of the Chenango County Bar Association,
has served on the Board of Broome Chenango Legal Assistance Corporation,
sits on the Governing Council of the Northeast Organic Farming
Association of New York, chairs the Management Committee of NOFA-NY
Certified Organic LLC, and leads the Chenango County Green Party
Organization. She leads a homestead life near Afton, where she
lives in a house she helped build and raises most of her food.
She's a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother.
And she wants to be your Attorney General. Vote Green!
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