TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Dec. 8, 2014) - Coming on the heels of a Toronto Star expose about the WSIB's rebating millions of dollars to companies found guilty of serious health & safety offences, workers who have been injured in some of these very companies will take to the streets at 400 University Ave today at 11:00am, calling on the Ontario government to end these types of affronts to their dignity and well-being.
The Star's report caps off a year that saw what private lawyers, doctors, legal clinics, and the Ontario Federation of Labour called the most explicit attack on the rights of injured workers in the past 100 years. Since 2001, there has been a 20% increase in denied claims at the WSIB. This stands in stark contrast with the millions in rewards being paid out unsafe employers, and to WSIB President and CEO David Marshall, who is slated to receive a $400,000 bonus when his term ends in January.
"We know the WSIB, under its current administration, has got lots of dirty laundry that's toxic to injured workers," says President of the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups, Eugene Lefrancois. "And today, we're airing it all out. Enough is enough. We refuse to pay the price of the WSIB's austerity and cost-cutting measures."
Today's rally promises to be hard-hitting verbally, as well as colourful visually. Protestors will pin onto a clothesline garments representing the WSIB's dirty laundry, to literally air out their grievances.
"Premier Wynne was elected on a vision of a fair Ontario. Don't injured workers deserve to be part of that vision?" asks Lefrancois. "We still remember the founding principles of our workers' compensation system, and we want the government to help restore them. It's going to take some long-overdue purging of dirty laundry, and we're here to start that today."
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