ONIWG: WSIB gives corporations millions while doctors, injured workers outraged

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - October 31, 2016) - Despite growing public attention surrounding the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's (WSIB) treatment of workers who get injured on the job, the WSIB announced Friday that they will further reduce employers' premium rates that fund the system.

"It hurts to know that instead of helping injured workers when we desperately need it, the WSIB is giving over $250 million to the very corporations whose unsafe workplaces made us sick," says Catherine Fenech, Secretary of the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG).

There is growing public concern that WSIB's aggressive cost cutting measures are causing serious harm to workers who get injured on the job:

• Over 140 doctors, nurses, legal clinics, immigrant rights groups, labour organizations and community members signed an open letter calling for immediate changes at WSIB;

• Physicians are speaking out publically on the impact of WSIB's policies on their patients;

• Psychologists and injured workers are calling for the Ontario Ombudsman to investigate how the WSIB systematically ignores the opinions of treating health care providers;

• The Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal saw a self-described "Appeals Tsunami" in 2012 and, in 2015, announced it was dealing with a "massive overflow" of appeals of WSIB decisions; and

• The Ombudsman has seen a spike in the number of complaints it receives about WSIB.

"It's outrageous that WSIB is reducing employer premiums at a time when they've been cutting benefits at an unprecedented rate," says Eugene Lefrancois, President of the ONIWG. "Without any change in laws, the WSIB is dismantling the compensation system for generations to come and ruining so many lives in the process."