TORONTO — The United Steelworkers (USW) is calling for upgrades to benefits for injured Ontario workers as the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) introduces two new top executives to its leadership team.
Grant Walsh was recently named the WSIB’s chair of the board of directors and Jeffery Lang was announced as WSIB president and CEO.
In making the announcement, Labour Minister Monte McNaughton said injured workers “should have the confidence that they and their loved ones will be taken care of.”
“Promises and pretty words are meaningless if they are not promptly followed by long-overdue, concrete measures needed to help injured workers and their families,” said Myles Sullivan, the USW’s Ontario director-elect, in a statement.
The USW is urging the government and the WSIB to act on recommendations from the Occupational Disease Reform Alliance and other workers’ advocacy groups, including:
- compensating occupational disease claims when workplace patterns exceed community levels;
- expanding the list of compensable diseases presumed to be work-related;
- using the proper legal standard, not scientific certainty, in compensation cases;
- recognition that exposures to multiple substances in workplaces combine to cause disease;
- ensuring proper levels of funding for the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers; and
- transparent reporting of the WSIB’s funding levels and financial practices.
“We join injured and ill workers and their families across Ontario in genuinely hoping this government will act meaningfully and take the WSIB in a new direction,” Sullivan said.
One concept that is intentionally forgotten by people and media is the funding purpose of workers comp fact that 1. workers comp is NOT funded by taxpayers 2. when a legitimate claim is denied it then costs taxpayers in untold amounts!