Flags are lowered on May 28 as workers carry coffins representing the
  188 workers killed last year. 

                     Dying For A Job


With the advent of the Workers Day of Mourning on April 28 upcoming as I write this, I thought it might be prudent to point out some of the situations BC workers are facing in the event they are injured due to a workplace accident.

With the change to the Workers Compensation rules and regulations nearly 3 years ago, the government told us we would be better served. This seems not to be the case. If we were to look at the statistics of how much compensation injured workers are receiving now as to what was being paid prior to the changes, it often ends up being nothing more than a further injury to worker.

Last year in BC there were only 11 new claims accepted for a loss of income pension, in total there was more than 300, but the balance of them were claims from prior years working their way through the system from previous appeals and unfinished adjudication.

Some of the other changes are that in previous years workers were paid at the rate of 75% of their gross income, now with changes workers will receive 90% of their take home pay, or net pay. Oh, and this also ends now at age 65 and is no longer indexed to meet inflation.

I should also point out that 4 years ago the W.C.B. had a deficit exceeding half a billion dollars (570 million), today they are running a surplus of more than 300 million dollars.

What this means to the injured workers and their families is a financial shortfall when the money is needed most.

The government claims that the money would better be spent in retraining workers to perform new tasks in the workplace by way of implementing vocational rehabilitation programs.

This may seem good in theory but if you are a faller working in the bush, as in one case, bringing in an excess of $90,000.00 dollars annually and then have to go through a retraining program that spits you out on the other end equipped to make barely $40.000.00 a year it can create a severe hardship. With the disappearing of the loss of income pension more and more workers are getting injured financially as well as the physical injury they suffered at the workplace.

Let us not forget the reason for the Workers Day of Mourning is to mourn the workers that were killed and injured on the job, but in the future with the disappearing of the loss of income pension we will be mourning more and more workers due to the restructuring of the Workers Compensation Board.

On another note with regard to worker safety, we are approaching the most deadly time of year. It is the time when high schools are graduating people and they are entering the workforce. Because of their relative inexperience in the full time workplace, and not familiar with some of the tasks that are about to perform, we are faced with the gruesome statistic that about 160 of these workers Canada wide will be killed on the job before the end of the year.

Most of these tragedies could have been prevented altogether with the proper education of on the job safety and workplace familiarization.

Gary Blanke
Business Representative of District 250, Kelowna office