• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Injured Workers Online

Injured Workers Online

Working Together for Justice

  • Blog
  • Sign Up
  • About
  • Twitter
Working Together for Justice
  • Workers’ Compensation
    • History
    • Law Reform
    • Workers’ compensation bills
    • Chronic Pain Victory
    • Research and Education
    • Bancroft Institute
    • Meredith Conference: “No-Half Measures”
    • RAACWI
  • Issues
    • Appeals
    • Benefits
    • Cost of living adjustments
    • Deeming
    • Pre-existing conditions
    • Experience Rating
    • Funding
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Return to Work
    • Stigma and surveillance
    • Universal Coverage
  • Community
    • Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG)
    • Workers’ Comp Is a Right campaign
    • Injured Worker Groups
    • IW Speakers School
    • Injured Workers’ Stories
    • Arts & social justice
  • Events
    • Calendar View
    • RSI Awareness Day
    • Day of Mourning
    • Injured Workers Day
    • Women of Inspiration Vigil
    • Labour Day – a workers’ festival
  • Media
    • Press Releases
    • Fact Sheets
    • Headlines on workers’ compensation
    • Videos
  • Resources
    • Law and Policy Submissions
    • Reports, Articles & Papers
    • Practical guides & booklets
    • IWHP Bulletins
    • Library
    • Find Legal Help
    • Links
You are here: Home / Injured Workers’ Community / Stories / Antonio

Antonio

Long-time member of Bright Lights and activist in the injured worker movement, Tony Mauro (d. 2022) was injured in two construction work accidents after immigrating to Canada in 1956. The first injury was to his back in 1966 when working as a carpenter on a high-rise construction; the second injury, six years later when moving a steel beam, broke his back completely. At age 38, the severity of this permanent injury left the father of two young children unable to work.

His frustrations in trying to gain fair compensation from the Workers’ Compensation Board are carried in his well-known poem [Download a version in English and Italian “Gli’Infortunati sul Lavoro”].

As an older worker with a pre-1990 injury, he was one of those who fell though the cracks when changes to the workers’ compensation legislation gave workers such as he (on full benefit and not expected to ever work again) cost-of-living adjustments for injuries suffered in 1990 or later. In a 2014 interview in the Toronto Star (with video) he describes the unjust treatment: benefits capped at 90% of his 1970 wages, and what’s worse, his Old Age Security benefit was lumped in with the WSIB benefits. In their calculations, any increase in the OAS means his WSIB benefit was clawed back by that amount!


The Injured Workers

by Antonio Mauro

O Canada, we gave you the very best
This we say with pride
We gave you nothing but the best
We gave you our blood, our bones, our flesh

We made you the most beautiful
We made Toronto the queen of cities
We built all the office towers and homes
O Canada, you are the envy of all

O Canada, we built you up
Our blood is mixed into your cement
We are but innocent victims
Of a progress we paid dearly for

Mothers destroyed by grief
Spouses staring at a loss
children without a parent
What else do you want?

The day of our injury
Was the loss of our human rights
Not even our pension plan
Wants our contributions now

No compensation for the pain
Charity from month to month
Looked upon by provincial eyes –
But are we not perfectly Canadian?

A half-life of hell
Confined to the margins of society
Why was justice denied?
Why the trip from pride to begging?

O Canada, we gave you so much
Why so much cruelty in return?
Are we just old tools
Good yesterday, garbage today

Although unable to work or take part in the physical activities he had loved (soccer, music, dancing), his poetry has won awards in Canada and his native Italy.

Copyright © 2025 Injured Workers Online
  • Accessibility
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy

The information in this website is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for legal advice. For legal advice, see Find legal help