Changes to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board are forcing more workers into poverty because of changes to the claims process that are denying benefits to workers injured on the job through no fault of their own.

“The WSIB is supposed to be a public system to support workers injured on the job until they can go back to work,” said CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn. “But changes in recent years have reduced benefits to workers injured on the job and are designed to prevent workers from receiving benefits.”

Worse still, as a study by the Ontario Federation of Labour revealed in November, employers guilty of killing a worker are being rewarded with rebates on their WSIB premiums. Over a three-year period, 135 employers convicted of offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) received rebates, mostly in the same year they’d committed the offense.

“That’s not just offensive, it’s dangerous. Employers who are guilty of killing a worker should go to jail, not get millions in WSIB rebates,” said Hahn.