Workers shouldn’t afraid to report their injuries, says Steve Mantis.
Mantis, head of the Thunder Bay Injured Workers Support Group, was one of 30 people who met with Minister of Northern Development and Mines Michael Gravelle on Friday to discuss obstacles and unfair regulations in the Workplace Safety Insurance Board system.
Having lost his left hand in a workplace incident decades ago, Mantis said under the present set-up, workers are often discouraged from officially reporting their injuries, which can lead to health-related problems down the road.
“What we’re hearing on a regular basis is that workers, when they become injured, are feeling intimidated at work and that they’re being pressure not to report injuries, or if there is an injury to downplay the seriousness of it,” Mantis said.
“We have a major concern that is this is stimulated by the experience rating program at the WSIB.”
The program can give substantial rebates or issue penalty surcharges to companies that either report minimal or no injuries or make a number of claims.
Mantis, who noted workers at Resolute Forest Products' Thunder Bay sawmill were recently sent home because of three reported incidents, said WSIB needs an overhaul and hoped to deliver that message to Gravelle to take back to Queen’s Park.
“It was set up 100 years ago. It’s our oldest social program in Canada and we’re seeing that it’s being undercut, that the program that’s supposed to be there for workers, oftentimes isn’t,” Mantis said.
Take repetitive strain injuries, for example.
Only one in four people suffering from these type of injuries actually bother to report the problem because they feel like they won’t qualify for a WSIB claim or that they’ll be stigmatized at work or black-listed by their employers, Mantis said.
“All of those really encourage them to say, ‘I won’t bother, I won’t rock the boat.
Gravelle, who has dealt with dozens of injured-worker claims in his 18 years in office, said if this is the case, something needs to change.
“That certainly shouldn’t be the case and that’s why it’s important for me to be here to listen to the concerns that they have, as I always have,” Gravelle said. “If that’s something that’s going to be a great issue for a number of workers, we need to make sure that doesn’t happen. Workers, they have their rights and we’re supposed to have a safe workplace.”
Mantis said the numbers should speak for themselves.
“Over the last three years, we have seen a 30 per cent increase in fatalities at work. This is a red flag that goes off for me. Normally you’ll see the number of fatalities reflect the number of injuries. But what we’re seeing is the number of reported injuries is shrinking, but the number of fatalities is expanding,” Mantis said.
