e During an April meeting in Kapuskasing, Ontario, National Safety Council Officers discussed changes in Ontario.
Clockwise from left are Local 1-2995’s Damien Roy, Local 1-71’s Bob Patterson, Local 217’s Jim Parker, National Ist V.P.
Neil Menard, Local 1-184’s Ray Dease, Local 1-424’s Gerry Smith, Local 2693’s Joe Hanlon, National Representative Tom
Lowe and Local 1-417’s Tom Graham.

Ontario government goes on all-out
attack against health and safety

As workers in Ontario know, the
Conservative government of Mike
Harris has been moving quickly to
slash and burn government programs
and gut provincial labour laws. But
many may be unaware of just how ex-
treme the government has become in
its zeal to change laws that affect the
health and safety of working people.

The Harris government is moving
fast to change rules governing the
Workers Compensation Board, Indus-
trial Health and Safety Regulations,
the Workers Health and Safety Centre,
the Ministry of Labour, and mandato-
ry Coroner inspections of fatal acci-
dents.

The Lumberworker was in Ontario
in late April to find out more about
how the Harris government is taking
the sides of employers and is casting
off protection for workers in serious

ways that will effect I.W.A. CANADA
members.

WORKERS COMPENSATION
BOARD

Looking at the WCB alone, the Har-
ris government is contemplating pri-
vatizing the whole system. Saying that
the WCB has an unfunded liability of
over $11 billion, the Tories are consid-
ering the full privatization of insur-
ance services.

Liberty Mutual, a giant U.S. insur-

ance firm, has put in a bid to overtake
the responsibility for carrying premi-
ums.
However the WCB should not be
underfunded, says Wayne Glibbery, a
representative with the Workers
Health and Safety Centre, in Sudbury.

He says that the problem is that
there are over 50,000 employers in the
province which are not paying their

Kitchener protest

Continued from page 6

“It’s clear that from what happened in
London, from what happened in
Hamilton and from what-has hap-
pened in (the) Waterloo Region, (that)
no one can doubt that a movement is
being built in Ontario that has the
power to defeat the Harris govern-
ment.”

In an interview with the Lumber-
worker, Brother Fred Miron said that
union is encouraged by the involve-
ment of members from Local 500 and
700. So far all three anti-Harris gov-
ernment protests have taken place in
the jurisdiction of Local 500.

Miron says that union members
should be aware that Harris is slash-
ing the staff of the Ministry of Natural
Resources (MNR) by some 40%. (see
column by Kim Pollock, page 4).

“Cutbacks to the Ministry of Natur-
al Resources will be to the cost of our
environment,” said Brother Miron.
“Cutting down on the government en-
forcing forest practices will take us
back to the days of the ‘fox guarding
the chicken coup.”

He said that Ministry of Natural Re-
sources staff, and those in the Min-
istry of Lands and Forests before it,
have done fine work in ensuring that
forest companies have been kept
more honest.

Looking at a 40% cut in MNR staff
will be bad for the industry and moni-
toring will be taken over by the com-
panies and periodic spot-check will be
done by the Ministry.

“We think that monitoring of
wildlife and investigations will have to
be done by the companies,” said
Miron. “Now the Ministry of Natural

Resources has biologists on its pay-
roll. I doubt that forest companies
would add them to theirs.”

“Even if the companies do hire the
staff, the master is still the boss,” he
said.

Brother Miron said that the union is
extremely concerned about Harris’ at-
tack on the Workers Compensation
Board (see article on occupational
health and safety - this page) and the
attack on the Employment Standards
Act.

He said the Ministry of Labour is

snow looking at increasing the amount

of hours needed for overtime rates of
pay, reducing the minimum wage and
cutting back on the number of statuto-
ry holidays.

The Harris government is also ham-
mering away at welfare by cutting $1
billion and reducing benefits to star-
vation levels. In addition the Conserv-
atives are cutting 17,000 single par-
ents off of welfare while they are
trying to improve their education at
post-secondary school levels.

The government has removed subsi-
dies for over 390 co-operative and
non-profit housing units. It has also
cut funding for 30 homes for aborigi-
nal elders.

Other cutbacks include elimination
of programs for prevention of vio-
lence against women and the privati-
zation of 15 provincial parks.

The government is also still consid-
ering the privatization of the Ontario
Liquor Control Board, and the sell-off
of Ontario Hydro.

The protest saw dozens of union-
ized operations closed for the day.
Those operations included the Kitch-
ener Transit Bus Barn, Budd Canada
Inc., the University of Waterloo, Host-
ess-Frito Lay, Derian Aerospace, and
Lear Corporation.

WCB premiums. When they are
caught they pay small fines and are let
off the hook easily.

According to a government’s own
study by appointee Cam Jackson (a
Minister without portfolio responsible
for WCB), Harris is slashing WCB ben-
efits to 75% of earnings. And there are
some discussions in government that
a three day waiting period may be in-
troduced before a claim kicks in.

That is going to put more pressure
on unions to protect the rights of in-
jured workers says Joe Hanlon, Safety
Directer of I.W.A. CANADA Local

Brother Hanlon also points out to
the WCB proposing to use a “Meat.
Chart” which will limit benefits and
periods of benefits for injury of vari-
ous limbs or other body parts.

“This shows you how uncaring the
Harris government really is,” says
Brother Hanlon. “The want to cut ben-
efits and treat people like pieces of
meat.”

Hanlon points out to the fact that in
1995, that the WCB had an operating
surplus of $510 million and a surplus
of $140 million in the year before.

He says that the union is going to
have to gear up to negotiate protec-
tive provisions in collective agree-
ments if the government continues its
slash and burn approach.

Local 1-2995 Safety Director
Damien Roy agrees. He says that his
local is extremely concerned about
any reduction in benefits. He points
out to government proposals to elimi-
nate benefits for soft tissue injuries,
which constitute about half of all
WCB claims.

This could happen, says Brother
Roy, at the same time that soft tissue
injuries, in the form of musculoskele-
tal injuries such as carpal-tunnel in-
juries, back injuries and tendonitis are
becoming more common.

Those who would no longer get
WCB benefits for soft tissue injuries,
would be forced onto outside insur-
ance plans such as Long Term Disabil-
ity or social assistance. And it may
make it more difficult for the I.W.A. to
negotiate additional coverage in bene-
fit plans, while employers might move
to remove benefits plans from bene-
fits plans altogether.

Tom Lowe, a Staff Representative
at the union’s national office in West-
on, Ontario, says he is extremely con-
cerned about the direction that the
WCB is likely to take.

He says that the government wants
to give the rights to file WCB claims to
employers, where the employers
would have an 8 week discretionary
period to file the claim. Brother Lowe
also says the Harris government may
also limit the right of workers to ap-

peal WCB claim decisions.

Currently the worker him or herself
files the claim and gets benefits. If the
claim is not granted, it can go to an
adjudicator.

From there, if an appeal is needed,
it goes before an Review Panel of the
WCB. After that the final step of ap-
peal is the Workers Compensation Ap-
peal Tribunal, which is an indepen-
dent review team that would look at
any new evidence.

The Harris government wants to cut
out the last step of appeal in order to
trap workers with unfavourable
claims.

“My recommendation to any union
affiliate is to look at the changes com-
ing down the line and address them,”
says Brother Lowe. “They (the Harris
government) are going to continue to
implement changes so rapidly that, in
my opinion, we're running out of time
now. I would say we only have a win-
dow of under a year to react to all of
this.”

WORKERS HEALTH AND SAFETY
CENTRE

One of the targets on the Harris hit-
list has been the system of Workers
Health and Safety Centres across the
province. The Centres have been re-
sponsible for training 67% of Ontario's
worker and management members of
joint occupational health and safety
committees.

The call to do that came from the
Liberal government that preceded the
NDP government of Bob Rae. Now
Mike Harris is eroding the programs
put on by the Centre by cutting back
on its staff and resources. It has cut
the Centre’s instructors in half and
has forced a reduction in programs of-
fered.

The Conservatives want to turn
training back over to employer associ-
ations, despite the fact that over 92%
of employers representatives who
have taken courses put on by the Cen-
tre have said that it is an impressive
delivery system.

“The associations have blamed the
workers for accidents,” says Mr. Glib-
bery. “The have said that accidents
are a result of attitudes and we’ve
proven that to be wrong.”

Since the Workers Centre began its
training program in 1992 fatalities
have dropped 30% across the
province. So why change a program
that is working so well?

“We were the first ones out of the
gate when the Centre were legislated
and we did what we were told to do,”
explains Glibbery. “We have been
putting programs together as we were
instructed to do by bi-partite (labour
and management) parties.”

Government has said that certifica-
tion training programs are costly and
last for too many weeks. Now a seven
day course, in the core training pro-
gram, has been cut down to three
days. And despite a 50% cut in staff,
the Centre is still the leader in training
in the province.

Mr. Glibbery says that in the Sud-
bury region alone there have been
over 10,000 people trained at one level
or another.

To date there have been 45 1.W.A.
CANADA members trained in three
weeks of occupational health and
safety.

“Our method of training workers in
a concept that we developed back in
1990, where workers train workers,”
adds Glibbery. “It has not been a mat-
ter of where consultants come out of
the clouds and try to tell us their
jobs.”

A 30 hour training module based on
videos and involving workers has
been made for the wood processing
industry. Nothing yet has been devel-
oped for bushworkers since the Cen-
tre has been hit by the 50% reductions
in funding.

All of this has happened despite a
task force review panel, which in De-
cember of 1995 reported the Workers
Health and Safety Centre has provid-
ed employers with the best bang for
the buck.

Continued on page fifteen

NT ____.__...______ | | el

14/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1996