Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disabilities (CRPD) – Preparation for Canada’s 2nd Review
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PHANTOM JOBS EMPTY POCKETS What really happens to workers with work-acquired disabilities?
Injured workers face benefit cuts as compensation board assigns them ‘phantom jobs’ with ‘ghost wages’: Report
Human error? Stop blaming workers for their own deaths
Ontario employers to ‘educate themselves’ on workplace obligations to cut costs
Workplace violence against women rising, driven by growing rates in education sector
Upcoming Webinars – On the Move Partnership
About the On the Move Partnership –
Across the world a wide range of people are mobile for work – women and men, citizens and temporary foreign workers, new workers and those near retirement. From hours-long daily commutes, to travel that takes workers away from home for days, weeks, months and even years; from mobility within work (truck driving, shipping and others) to mobility to get to and from work; from cars and buses, to trains, ships and planes; from highly-paid top executive jobs, to minimum-wage service jobs; from natural resource dependent industry to natural wonder dependent tourism – the types of mobility are many and changing.
Here are the upcoming webinar events in the series:
Workers’ Compensation Challenges for the Mobile Workforce: Policy and Practice in Canadian Jurisdictions
(Katherine Lippel, Dana Howse and Barbara Nei).
May 30, 2019, 3:30 pm NL/3:00 pm Atlantic/ 2:00 pm Eastern/ 11:00 AM PT
Temporary Foreign Workers: Health and Wellness
(Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau, Adam Perry and Barbara Neis).
June 10, 2019, 3:30 pm NL /3:00 pm Atlantic/2:00 pm Eastern/ 11:00 AM PT
Occupational Health and Safety Challenges for the Mobile Workforce: Policy and Practice in Canadian Jurisdictions
(Katherine Lippel and Barbara Neis).
July 4, 2019, 3:30 pm NL / 3:00 pm Atlantic/ 2:00 pm Eastern/ 11:00 AM PT
You can view the full event details for each webinar here:
https://www.wwdpi.org/Webinars/health-and-the-mobile-workforce
Cuts Will Make Jobs Less Safe, PCs Warned
NDP critic asks: ‘What exactly is the value of a life of a worker to this government?’
Sara Mojtehedzadeh
The Toronto Star May 15, 2019
Funding cuts to the office tasked with preventing workplace deaths will make workers less safe on the job, opposition critics argued at Queen’s Park on Tuesday.
“No one person should go to work in the province of Ontario and not know if they’re coming home at the end of the day to their families,” said NDP labour critic Wayne Gates during question period.
“What exactly is the value of a life of a worker to this government?”
It comes as the Ministry of Labour’s prevention office – which is tasked with preventing workplace injury, illness and death in the province – faces $16 million in cuts this year.
The cuts emerge despite the fact it is not taxpayer-funded and does not impact the government’s bottom line.
The office’s costs are covered by reimbursements from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Laurie Scott said Tuesday an extra $512,000 will be dedicated to health and safety enforcement this year.
“We had important decisions to make putting people as a priority,” Scott said.
“We have looked at health and safety programs. We have worked with the partners that deliver these health and safety programs.
“There are other avenues of revenue for them to provide the programs.
“But we have, as I said, again, increased our enforcement budget by half a million dollars,” she said.
The bulk of the cuts will affect research projects on issues such as occupational disease, as well as the province’s independent health and safety associations, which provide ministry-approved training and support to workplaces across Ontario.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Labour announced plans to reform training for workplace joint health and safety committees by allowing some of it to be completed online to “reduce the burden on business while maintaining standardized high-quality training accessible to all workers across Ontario.”
“Slashing funding designed to protect workers, forcing training sessions online and creating unaccountable classes will make workers less safe,” Gates said.
Scott called “modernizing health and safety programs” a positive.
“We have the priority of the workers in mind in health and safety,” she said.
But Chris Buckley, head of the Ontario Federation of Labour, called the funding cuts “alarming.”
“(Doug Ford) professes to be there for the little guy, he professes to be there for the people,” he said.
“He’s got a very odd way of showing it.”
Rob Ellis became a health and safety advocate after his son David was killed in a bakery on his second day on the job.
His organization, MySafeWork, has provided workplace safety education to hundreds of thousands of students across the province.
Ellis told the Star he learned he will no longer receive government funding.
“This is concerning because we’re not told why these cutbacks are taking place and what will replace them,” he said.
“So I am really concerned about youth going out to work.
“I am really concerned about our newcomers who we desperately need to fill in our trades.”
Ellis added, “We’re still excited about saving lives.
“But we’re disappointed that the Ontario government doesn’t feel it’s an important part of remaining competitive.”
Ontario Worker Safety Program Cut by $16M
Budget reduction makes ‘no sense’ because prevention office not funded by province’s taxpayers, advocates say
Sara Mojtehedzadeh
The Toronto Star May 11, 2019
The provincial office tasked with preventing occupational injury, illness and death in Ontario will see $16 million in cuts this year, despite the fact the body is not taxpayer funded and does not impact the government’s bottom line.
The Ministry of Labour’s prevention office budget will drop from more than $119 million in 2018 to $103 million, new budget estimates released by the Ford government show. The bulk of the cuts will impact research projects on issues like occupational disease, as well as the province’s independent health and safety associations, which provide ministry-approved training and support to workplaces across Ontario.
The cutbacks follow a “thorough review of all government programs in order to ensure that valuable programs and services are sustainable,” according to ministry spokesperson Janet Deline, resulting in “difficult decisions with respect to funding agreements.”
But critics say the cuts make “no sense” because the prevention office’s costs are fully reimbursed by the provincial workers’ compensation board and are not borne by the general public.
“It’s not even tax dollars. It makes no sense. It will not affect the provincial deficit,” said Maryth Yachnin, a lawyer with the Toronto-based legal clinic Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario (IAVGO).
“It will ultimately lead to more accidents,” Yachnin said.
Although it operates out of the Ministry of Labour, the prevention office is funded by reimbursements from the workers’ compensation board as part of its mandate to promote safe workplaces. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is funded entirely by employers’ insurance premiums. In exchange for benefits provided by the province’s no-fault compensation system, injured workers give up their right to sue their employer.
Last year, the WSIB eliminated its unfunded liability, or the difference between the projected future costs of paying benefits to injured workers with existing claims and the money in the board’s accident fund. As a result, employers received a 30 per cent reduction in the premiums they are required to pay the WSIB starting in 2019.
Board president Tom Teahan has said the WSIB’s improved financial position would “ensure we can offer the best health-care services” to Ontario workers. In 2018, the WSIB provided $217 million to the ministry to cover occupational health and safety and prevention office costs.
Separately, the government is undertaking a review of the workers’ compensation system with a report to Labour Minister Laurie Scott expected by the end of the year.
“The reduction in spending in this program is part of the ministry’s commitment to achieving value for money and does not impact the government’s fiscal position,” Deline said.
“All programs are subject to expectations around service modernization, cost efficiencies, and value for money.”
As a result, the province’s health and safety associations (HSAs) will see a funding drop of $12 million.
While HSAs generate some of their own revenue through training program fees, other prevention efforts – like the Occupational Health Clinics For Ontario Workers and the Office of the Worker Adviser, both of which have been instrumental in assisting occupational disease victims receive workers’ compensation – do not generate any revenue.
Ministry funding for both those bodies flatlined this year.
Research funding will drop by $1.68 million, from $8.5 million last year to $6.8 million this year. In the past, that money has gone to initiatives like preventing chemical exposure amongst vulnerable nail salon workers and educating migrant farm workers about chemical hazards as well as reducing violence toward health care workers.
“Those are cutting edge issues,” said Andy King, a researcher at McMaster University and the former chair of the ministry’s occupational health and safety research advisory program.
“We’re trying to get some really crunchy research that should not only inform employers about what they should do, but inform inspectors about what they should do.
“But that’s not an interest of this government,” he said.
Deline said a “small portion of the cuts are to some research and grant organizations due to various reasons including end of time-limited project funding, or programs not aligning with prevention priorities.”
King said independent health and safety research that involves both employers and labour in project design has traditionally been a strength in Ontario, but the budget for it was small even before the cutbacks.
“We have a record that’s amazing. At the same time, there’s not a lot of money there,” he said. “This is really important to workers because ideological approaches to research kill workers.”