I don’t think many of us in the Construction Industry could take the psychological beating involved in working for a big bureaucracy, especially one as dysfunctional as the WSIB. To us just having to deal with WSIB is as much as we can take.

Over the years, I have participated in numerous industry committees and initiatives and one thing is constant; the WSIB bureaucracy believes we, the employers, are the problem.  The attitude seems to be; we are not safe enough; we are not trying hard enough; we do not re employ injured workers; we do not train; our safety policies are not good enough and therefore you will be punished for your sins. Under the present Liberal government this tendency has only been reinforced with a constant increase in rules, paper work and mean-spirited investigations and litigation. Once there were rewards, now there is mostly punishment.

Another constant over the years, has been the  industry’s request that the WSIB be accountable for its’ own management and provide employers with measurements, that will show us that the Board is dedicated to improving their job, just as they demand of us. The last constant I will note is that the Board has never provided industry with adequate measurement tools.

Things have to change. See the recent newsletter from Les Liversidge, a long time commentator on the WSIB, that clearly lays out this quandary with a series of descriptive graphs.

These graphs clearly show that employers have been doing their job for the last 20 years and LTI (loss time incident) frequency has steadily declined an incredible 80%. However, in the last 10 years, inflation adjusted benefits paid out have increased at the same rate as accidents have decreased. It seems irrational that the Board takes an increasingly punitive approach in dealing with employers, without explaining how the Board can be spending more every year in payouts while dealing with fewer injuries, but that is the sorry truth.

This is the question, the construction industry has been asking for years, without answer. The major issue here is that while injury frequency declines, costs per injury have skyrocketed. In the 6 year period since the Liberals came into Government, costs per injury have increased 72%.  The Board has increasingly been unable either to reign in these costs or even explain them despite repeated requests. How is it possible for the WSIB and the Government to claim that the solution to the Board’s financial problems is for us to reduce injuries, when they are letting costs increase exponentially? The Board is not accountable to Employers and does not have the moral authority to ask anything of us until they clean up their act. There is a mentality and a system that must be changed to improve safety and the financial health of the WSIB.

The latest issue is the new ‘Mandatory Coverage,’  the Government’s initiative to force all small, independent tradesmen\businessmen to buy insurance from the WSIB at the same rate as employees.  These individuals are the owners and have no interest in being forced to pay for something they do not need or want. And where is the morality to force anybody to buy insurance from an organization that is a badly managed fiscal basket case. 
 

For other news on the WSIB, check out the WSIB news section on our website at www.openshop.ca/pages/newspages/wsib.html.

Dave McDonald

President, Merit OpenShop Contractors Association