A video of the history of injured workers in Ontario, telling the important story of their struggles for justice from the early 1900s to the present day, has just been released by the Injured Workers’ History Project. Using historical records such as testimony from Royal Commissions, letters from injured workers to government and WCB officials, photographs and video clips, the DVD “Their Only Power was Moral” highlights and analyzes key events in Ontario’s workers compensation system and the role played by injured workers.
These include:
- Sir William Meredith’s 1910-1913 Royal Commission and and his principle recommendations that have come to be known as “Meredith’s Principles.”
- How the demands of injured workers and unions from the 1920s to the early 1960s led to improvements in benefits, rehabilitation, and pensions
- How the post World War II boom in manufacturing and construction increased occupational illnesses and illnesses, prompting the collective organization of injured workers and the formation of the Union of Injured Workers
- How the struggles of injured workers in the 1980s defeated government attempts to eliminate life long pensions while securing annual cost of living increases and the establishment of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal
- Changes in laws and regulations in the last two decades that have stigmatized and marginalized injured workers, making it increasingly difficult to have claims accepted and pushing injured workers into poverty
- How the injured workers’ movement is remaking itself through education and mobilization to continue to fight for justice
Copies of the DVD ($10) are available from the Ontario Network of Injured Workers (ONIWG) – or view it online in a 3-part YouTube series
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The Injured Workers’ History Project (IWHP) is a collaborative initiative (2005-) of injured workers, advocates and researchers, led by McMaster University Labour Studies Professor Robert Storey and injured worker Sabrina Pacini. Based on archival research and the collection of oral histories, the IWHP has also produced a series of Bulletins.