WSIB AND OTHER GOVERNMENT SCAMS

Today's Waterloo Region Record has a Letter To The Editor written by Robert and Dale DeMatteo, two Occupational health researchers from Campbellcroft, Ontario. The title at the beginning of the Letter is "Why workers are demanding a public inquiry into WSIB." They have read numerous denial of claim decisions from the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) in regards to General Electric cases in Peterborough, Ontario. These two researchers refer to the WSIB as using "science" as a weapon against injured workers. And thus has it always been. The WSIB and its forerunner the Workmans Compensation Board (WCB) were set up essentially to allow employers to save money and increase their profits on the backs of their workers. Sometimes literally. With workers being refused access to the courts for proper compensation after being injured on the job, the financial burden was transferred from private employers to the public purse. As it always has been whenever possible. It's called externalizing of costs and the most obvious example is companies transferring their waste disposal costs onto the public via dumping into the common air and common waterways.

This Letter To The Editor makes clear that the Board have long used standards and criteria not enshrined in law. They have demanded evidence and "proof" of the cause of injury far in excess of that which the Act demands. In other words the Board has and continues to weed out claimants from just compensation. Hence workers who had zero say in the original formation of the two compensation boards removing workers rights to sue have even less say in the management and operation of a compensation system that is biased against them. What I also find disheartening is the arbitrary nature of the WSIB decision process. They appear to deny obvious claims of groups of workers (GE in Peterborough & rubber workers in K-W) in order to save money but allow other individual, questionable claims possibly in order to indicate that they do pay out for some claims. A car insurance company pulling this crap would likely be run out of town as should the Ontario WSIB.