Workers' Comp is a Right!
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1483 .... September 18, 2017
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Workers’ Comp is a Right!
Aidan Macdonald and Heidi MacFarland
For years now, injured workers and frontline advocates have been sounding the alarm that Ontario’s Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) has been "getting its financial house in order" through austerity and cost-cutting measures. Whether it be from slashing compensation for lost wages, denying healthcare treatment and medication, or refusing to recognize mental health injuries, the cuts have come squarely on the backs of injured workers.
But resilient and strong in the face of injustice, injured workers across the province are rising up. The Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups (ONIWG) -- an umbrella organization of injured worker groups throughout Ontario -- is launching a province-wide campaign called Workers’ Comp is a Right, to... call for a system that treats them with dignity and respect, and that provides them with the compensation to which they are legitimately entitled.
This province-wide campaign has three concrete demands:
1. No cuts based on phantom jobs.
2. Listen to injured workers’ treating healthcare professionals.
3. Stop cutting benefits based on "pre-existing conditions."
These demands address some of the WSIB’s primary methods of cutting benefits and sending injured workers into poverty.
