Ahead of a press conference by injured workers this morning at Queen’s Park on a flawed workers’ compensation system, CBC’s Metro Morning interviewed injured worker David Morales about the reasons behind the Workers’ Comp Is a Right Campaign. In his own case, as an able-bodied athletic 30 year-old he had taken up work in steelframe construction. After a little over a year, he was forced to stop working when the heavy lifting, constant bending and extended hours left him with excruciating pain in the back and legs. His claim, supported by an MRI, was denied by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board based on a case adjudicator’s finding of a “pre-existing condition” , a degenerative spurring of the spine. Mr Morales notes the WSIB, in using aging as an excuse rather than looking at the actual injury, ignored the opinion of his family doctor, his neurosurgeon, his physiotherapist and chiropractor that indeed his type of work and prolonged hours had contributed to his injury (sciatica caused by a disk bulge touching a nerve). On painkillers, the injured worker gets by on available “light” work and has had to apply for social assistance. As he said, his is only one of many such stories … (Listen to the full interview: “Workers Taking Aim At the WSIB”)
The press conference (read press release) follows a successful community launch yesterday: see
- video, updates at ONIWG Facebook https://www.facebook.com/OntarioNetworkIWG/ and twitter # https://twitter.com/hashtag/workerscompisaright
- “Workers’ Comp Is a Right” – article in Rank and File.ca (Sep. 11) by Aidan Macdonald and Heidi MacFarland