“WSIB premium cuts hurts injured workers says OPSEU, Injured Workers Group” / Tom Sasvari (Manitoulin Expositor, Sep. 23, 2016)
At its recent Annual general meeting, the WSIB announced cuts to the premiums employers pay in 2017, averaging 5% but decreasing by up to 14% in some categories. Colin Pick, president of the Manitoulin-North Shore Injured Workers Group (MNIWG), shares the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) opinion that “this amounts to taking money from some of the most vulnerable people in Ontario and handing it to employers”.
The unfortunate repeat of a pattern
In the words of Injured Workers’ Consultants Legal Clinic’s David Newberry:
“The pattern is this: declare a financial crisis in the WSIB’s unfunded liability costs, reduce benefits to workers, and return the savings to employers in the form of rate cuts. The WSIB’s own numbers show that 46 percent of their recent savings have resulted directly from allowing fewer claims for less time. It’s injured workers who are underwriting the $250 million in savings to employers.”