This section contains press releases,
photos, press clippings and commentary on media coverage of
injured workers' issues.
June 29, 2008:
"Hiding injuries rewards companies: Star investigation reveals job safety numbers are underreported, cutting employer costs." /
David Bruser (Toronto Star). Article finds the government's highly touted campaign to improve workplace safety is rewarding companies for hiding injuries and rushing the wounded
back to work.
June 5-8, 2008:
Injured Workers' Day - "Injured workers' 25-year long battle: protesters demonstrated in front of Queen's park
for their rights" / Letizia Tesi . (Tandem Online-Corriere Canadese) covers the annual June 1st
rally.
May 23, 2008:
Letter to the editor: "WSIB policy penalizes employers who hire previously disabled" / Gary Robertson (Daily Commercial News. How
experience rating can adversely affect construction employers who employ a worker with a pre-existing disability.
May 21, 2008:
"Update on the aftermath of the Dryden Mill incident" [audio]. CBC Radio Thunder Bay reporter Kellie Hudson continues
to follow the impact of the exposure to brain toxins and the handling of workers' compensation claims by the Board.
May 10, 2008:
"Stress of fight to prove injury claim blamed for man's death" / Kate Hammer (Globe and Mail). Family
raises issue of injured worker's treatment at the Board. According to advocacy groups, injured workers often suffer from depression and anxiety associated with
the difficulties of filing a compensation claim.
May 8, 2008:
"NDP wants WSIB program scrapped" / David Bruser (Toronto Star). Incentive plan gives
rebate to some companies that have been prosecuted for safety violations. The New Democratic Party
has put forward a motion calling for an audit of the experience rating program.
April 29, 2008:
"Injured workers still face real struggles"/ Tom Cooper (Hamilton Spectator) As injured workers and their families gather on the national day of mourning many obstacles
still confront them. While many struggle financially, some employers receive generous rebates under the experience rating program which, as Marion Endicott wrote 13 years ago,
undermines "the basic principles on which the compensation system is built".
April 14, 2008:
"End worker harassment." [letter to the editor] (Toronto Star). In an effort to earn rewards and avoid penalties, employers lose no time in forcing workers back to work too soon,
offering them meaningless jobs or attempting to discredit their injury claims...
For more information on experience rating, and why it matters [click here]
April 10, 2008:
"WSIB rebate embarrassing, premier says" (Toronto Star). Premier responds to yesterday's press conference
at Queen's Park by injured worker groups and labour groups demanding faster action on the experience rating system.
April 9, 2008:
Injured workers groups and OFL call for end to employer incentive program (Toronto Star). Press conference scheduled as
the Board's response is questioned. [Press release]
April 5, 2008:
Experience rating exposed...."When companies get rewarded for mistakes"
Another article in Toronto Star's series "Working wounded" looks at flaws in the workers' compensation system.
Responses:
April 2, 2008:
WCB Chair Steve Mahoney speaks about employer rebates, the Board's controversial advertising, injuries rates, benefit indexation, costs ...
on TVO's "The Agenda"
[Video]
March 11, 2008:
"Risky workplaces face cash penalties" (Toronto Star). The Board
announces a review of the experience rating program and immediate moratorium on rebates for companies
responsible for a workplace fatality.
February 16, 2008:
Toronto Star publishes first in a series of reports from
its investigation into workplace illness and injury
In "Board shields unsafe job sites" the article looks at how occupational health and safety can be compromised
under the current experience rating system that rewards companies for reporting low lost-time claims.
December 11, 2007:
16th Annual Injured Worker Christmas Demo
Injured workers, unions and advocates bring their issues to the new Minister of Labour, Brad Duguid,
and WCB/WSIB Chair, Steve Mahoney. Speakers emphasize the 4 key demands:
- The elimination of “Deeming” and “Determining”
- Full, permanent Cost-of-living
- The elimination of Experience Rating
- Coverage for all workers
[Flyer | Photos |
Audio (Radio4all.net)]
Click on links under "Download" (Windows Media Player)
or "Play" (Realplayer)
Photos and audio courtesy of John Bonnar / Toronto Social Justice Magazine
October 2, 2007:
Injured workers betrayed by broken promises - rally on deeming
The Minister of Labour Steve Peters amended the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act with a clear written
commitment that his changes would eliminate "deeming" - this practice of reducing our benefits because the
Board imagines us to have phantom wages from jobs we can't get hired into, forces us onto welfare and into poverty.
He promised but he didn't deliver....
[ONIWG/OFL press release]
June 1, 2007:
Injured Workers' Day - media coverage from around the province
May 28, 2007:
Injured Workers' Day (June 1, 2007) - Minister of Labour commits to abolishing phantom jobs for injured
workers - will the WSIB do it?
On the 23rd anniversary of Injured Workers' Day, the WSIB is urged to follow through the Minister's intent to
address injured workers' poverty with the necessary policy changes to eliminate deeming.
[ONIWG press release]
March 19, 2007:
Vigil at Queen's Park, Toronto, 12 noon - 2 p.m. : Injured workers want an end to poverty
Workers who have been permanently disabled as the result of a workplace injury or disease are falling further into poverty
while MPPs give themselves a 25% raise...A 2005 research report by Street Health
surveyed homeless people in Toronto and found that workplace injuries played a role in becoming disabled for
57% of working participants....
[Media advisory |
Street Health report | 2007 Injured workers' cost of living facts & figures]
January 15, 2007:
"Out of sync" - a CBC News investigation into
how workplace safety inspections are failing to cover the modern workplace environment. Despite the
significant number of injury claims, safety inspections do not properly address non-traditional environments such as health care facilities,
educational institutions and offices, and fail to recognize the needs of shift-workers. Audio clips discuss chronic stress and dangers to healthcare workers,
including comments by Robert Storey.
December 7, 2006:
Dignity - not poverty! 15th Annual Injured Worker Christmas Demonstration
Photos
and video from the
demo outside the Toronto offices of the Ministry of Labour - courtesy of John Bonner.
November 20, 2006:
Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups / Ontario Federation
of Labour press conference
Injured workers demand McGuinty live up to his election campaign promise to protect worker benefits
from inflation. He stated in a letter dated April 4, 2003 to OFL
President Wayne Samuelson: "… Injured workers and their dependents
should not have to rely on their pensions being topped up by welfare
payments …. We are also studying an approach to introduce a fair inflation
factor to protect worker benefits from inflation."
Injured workers
say the time is now. No more excuses.
[press release | fact sheets |
photos
and video - The ACTivist magazine online, November
21 ]
Sept. 23, 2006
Remembering Carol McGregor - champion of injured workers' rights and dear colleague
[IWC news release]
April 24, 2006
Dying for a Job (CBC series) - Today's program of the CBC's ongoing investigation on workplace safety follows the case of injured worker
Halima Tato over ten months as she
tries to get her compensation claim recognized by the Board and deals with the chronic pain and depression
resulting from her accident. Her story also is an example of the pressures companies in Ontario feel, and place on workers, to return to work
quickly to avoid lost-time injury claims. As Halima's legal representative, IWC's Marion Endicott explains,
the Board's experience rating system gives Ontario businesses a financial incentive to do just this.
