AFAIK IE for PC doesn't properly implement the 'static' attribute for layers properly - only on IE for Mac (now THAT doesn't happen very often!)
Why don't you try using iFRAMES instead? They're implemented in the HTML 4 standard and widely understood by modern browsers.
Not that iFRAMES completely meets your needs - I'm assuming you've done things a certain way to avoid doubling up code and getting things ready for search engines. But they can still be a useful tool to get certain functionality working as planned.