Thunder Bay Injured Workers Frustrated
THUNDER BAY – News – The Thunder Bay and District Injured Workers Support Group will hold an information Picket outside the Thunder Bay Casino. The many members of the TBDIWSG continue to be frustrated by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s Experience Rating Program. The workers will be there on Friday, DEcember 13th at 12:30PM.
“We have long opposed the name change at the Workers Compensation Board” said TBDIWSG chair Greg Snider “The WSIB should be about workers and not workplaces. It should be about Compensation and not insurance and if it is going to add safety to it’s name it should be about worker’s safety and not WSIB claims.”
The Experience Rating Program claims to punish/reward businesses based on the safety of their workplaces, but in fact the determination of reward/punishment is solely based on lost time. Far too many organizations have decided to keep cost down by managing claims instead of taking action to make their workplace safer. This results is Workers who are injured in the workplace being discouraged from reporting injuries, workers facing long battles to obtain benefits and injuries to other workers as the workplace safety issue remains unmanaged.
The Ontario Lottery Corporation is aware that many of their employees are likely to receive Repetitive Strain Injuries due to the nature of their employment and they should be taking action to make this work safer, while supporting their employees who file for benefits under WSIB. Instead their employees are faced with dismissal. The TBIWSG asks the OLC, “when it comes to profit … when is enough, enough.”