NDP wants WSIB program scrapped

"The McGuinty government is being asked to scrap a controversial workplace insurance program that gave financial rewards to companies guilty of fatal safety violations. The New Democratic Party has put forward a motion, scheduled to be debated at Queen's Park next week, that also calls for an audit of the so-called "experience rating" program that critics claim entices companies to hide injuries and rush injured workers back on the job. . . NDP Leader Howard Hampton says he wants to know how much money went to undeserving companies, adding that he has no faith the McGuinty government will attempt to make any serious changes as part of the review already underway. "

The McGuinty government is being asked to scrap a controversial workplace insurance program that gave financial rewards to companies guilty of fatal safety violations.

The New Democratic Party has put forward a motion, scheduled to be debated at Queen's Park next week, that also calls for an audit of the so-called "experience rating" program that critics claim entices companies to hide injuries and rush injured workers back on the job.

An ongoing Star investigation recently found the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board has given millions of dollars in rebates to companies that have been prosecuted by another arm of the provincial government and ordered to pay fines.

In many cases, the amount of the rebate far exceeded the value of the fine. The WSIB announced a year-long review of the program and labour groups called for the firing of its chair, Steve Mahoney.

While Premier Dalton McGuinty called the Star's findings an "embarrassment" that needs to be fixed, he said Mahoney stays put.

Mahoney yesterday said the NDP motion is "nothing more than grandstanding," and Liberal Labour Minister Brad Duguid dismissed it as unproductive posturing.

"I think the NDP should keep their powder dry and wait until we get the facts," Mahoney said.

"It's a little disappointing, frankly, and I don't know what purpose it will serve. We have already launched our own thorough examination."

But NDP Leader Howard Hampton says he wants to know how much money went to undeserving companies, adding that he has no faith the McGuinty government will attempt to make any serious changes as part of the review already underway.

The incentive program – known in WSIB circles as the "experience rating system" – began in 1985 to make companies safer by using a penalty-rebate ("carrot-stick") approach. The system looks at the "experience" of each company.

Premiums are based largely on the expected cost of a company's claims for the year. If lower than projected, the company gets a rebate. How much lower determines the amount of the rebate.

If a firm's insurance costs exceed expectations, it is hit with a surcharge. The program does not add any extra penalty when there is a death.

Loss-time injuries – that is, injuries that cause a worker to miss at least one shift – can be more costly to a company than injuries that do not lead to lost time. Generally speaking, the longer a loss-time injury persists, the greater the cost under the experience rating program.

Defenders of the system say it encourages most companies to make workplaces safer, and they underscore the ministry of labour's claim that loss-time injuries have gone down 20 per cent since 2004.

But Hampton and others say the program's emphasis on the cost of loss-time injuries is creating an increasingly common problem: Companies coming up with degrading, meaningless jobs designed to prevent the injured worker from missing a shift.

Rushing an injured worker back to work, they say, often makes the injury worse.

"It's a widespread problem. I know from my own experience there are a number of significant industrial employers in my constituency where when you talk with workers they say this goes on all the time," Hampton said.

"You're injured, you're called in, asked to come sit in the office a few days, all as a means of under-reporting the actual (lost time)."