The 30% cut to employers’ premiums recently announced by the Ontario government and WSIB continues to draw strong condemnation for the negative and continuing impact it will have for those with work-related injury or illness:
- The Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups (ONIWG) press release calls on the WSIB and the Ford government to reverse the $1.45 billion dollar gift to Ontario employers, and instead put that money towards restitution for injured workers who have been unjustly denied or cut off benefits because of the Board’s austerity measures.
Injured workers have already borne the burden of paying off the WSIB’s manufactured financial crisis … Since 2010, compensation benefits provided to injured workers have been slashed by over $2 billion. Almost half of injured workers with a permanent disability are living at or near poverty levels,” (ONIWG President Willy Noiles)
With the Workers’ Comp is a Right campaign and the Real Healthcare campaign, injured workers are reminding the Ford government that workers’ compensation is a right based on the historical compromise – not charity or a ‘burden’ on employers or the province. Injured workers are offended by the idea that condemning injured workers to poverty will boost the economy of Ontario. .. [read full press release]
- In the Just Compensation blog (Sep. 27) lawyer Antony Singleton questions “The reward for paying down the WSIB’s unfunded liability? Permanent austerity, if you’re an injured worker.” What’s wrong with the employers’ story that they paid off the unfunded liability, and so should pay lower premiums now that it’s done? It ignores the fact, as the article details, that previous reductions to employers’ premiums caused the unfunded liability and injured workers have been paying for it through benefit cuts … The WSIB will be operating with greatly reduced annual revenues for the foreseeable future and it is unlikely any government will have the political will to increase premiums again – which is now what’s required for workers to have their benefits restored. [ Read full article]