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NDP GOVERNMENT ‘S COMPLACENCY WITH LACK OF WCB ACCOUNTABILITY
by Pictou County Injured Workers Association
December 8, 2012 (New Glasgow, NS) Pictou County Injured Workers Association will be conducting a picket at the Constituency Office of Minister of Justice and Pictou Centre MLA Ross Landry on Monday December 10, 2012 at 11:00 am.
The Association has brought numerous issues of concern to the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) and to the Department of Labour and Advanced Education on the failure of the WCB to adhere to its legislative responsibilities. “We have done all we can from within the Workplace Safety and Insurance System to address these serious concerns but there is no willingness on the part of the system or government to change the status quo.” says Mary Lloyd, President of Pictou County Injured Workers Association, “It is unfortunate that we must take these issues to a public forum in order to be addressed.”
Those issues of concern include:
- The failure to ensure the annual operating deficit is eliminated within three years of occurrence (section 116 of the Workers’ Compensation Act). WCB recorded annual operating deficits in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Annual Reports. In 2006, the Unfunded Liability is reported as $390 million. The deficits for these years should have been eliminated by the end of the 2011 fiscal year. The 2011 Annual Report lists an Unfunded Liability of $667 million. The Unfunded Liability nearly doubled during the timeframe WCB was legislatively required to recoup the previous annual operating deficits.
- The failure of WCB to collect sufficient revenue to meet the costs of all claims payable during the year, the future cost of those claims and the expenses associated with administrating those claims. (Section 115). The consistent annual operating deficits in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011 are clear evidence. The Experience Rating system, which provided Employers with a $171 million reduction in assessments from 1996 to 2011, serves no value in reducing injuries or making workplaces safer and is unjustified in a system that has a current unfunded liability of $667 million.
- The failure of WCB to protect the employment rights of injured workers by ensuring certain employers re-employ workers injured on their worksites (section 91). WCB is failing to ensure employers are providing evidence to meet the burden of undue hardship when refusing to re-employ injured workers.
- The failure of WCB to make decisions on the facts of each case and in accordance with the legislative requirements (Section 186). The WCB appears to make decisions based upon corporate performance targets rather than upon it’s legislated criteria. This results in inconsistent decision-making, unnecessary appeals and more costly adjudication which ultimately undermines the integrity of the workers’ compensation system and downloads costs for medical treatment on the publicly funded systems such as Health and Community Services.
Ms. Lloyd states she has not, during her 25 years as an injured worker advocate, seen a Minister of Labour so complacent to the failure of WCB to abide by its governing statute: “We may not have significant financial resources, and we may not have our health, but we do have the right to vote for a government that will force the WCB to abide by the legislation”
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