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February 26, 2014 - Vol. 3
No. 16
Outcome of Niagara Falls
By-Election
Step Up the Fight for Rights and
Against
Austerity! Develop the Independent Politics of the Working Class!
Outcome
of
Niagara
Falls
By-Election
• Step
Up
the
Fight
for
Rights
and
Against
Austerity! Develop the Independent
Politics of the Working Class!
• Oppose
Liberals'
Vicious
Assault
on
Public
Servants
• Hudak's
Forced
Retreat
on
Slave
Labour
Laws
Justice for injured
Workers
• Oppose
Government's
Latest
Attack
on
Workers'
Right
to
Just Compensation
-
Christine Nugent
• Injured
Workers
Resist
Latest
Attacks
on
Their
Benefits
Outcome of Niagara Falls By-Election
Step Up the Fight for Rights and Against Austerity!
Develop the Independent Politics of the Working Class!
Spirited picket outside
of Liberal Provincial Council meeting in Hamilton opposes both Liberal
and PC
versions of austerity,
September 28, 2013.
The working people have delivered a new blow to the
austerity agenda in Ontario by defeating the Liberals and PCs in
Niagara Falls. They have shown
that they reject the blackmail of the party system that defines the
options for the electorate, rather than bringing forward their concerns.
During the by-election, the Liberals tried to influence
the electorate through blackmail and bribes of all kinds including
various promises to unions and others
at the last minute; the PCs tried character assassination and
fearmongering about a union takeover; while the NDP tried to encourage
the workers to become a vote bank for them as some
had done for the Liberals in the past. None of this worked to convince
the working
people to give up their own fight for rights.
Now both the Liberals and PCs are resetting in an
attempt to get the working people to give up their independent
organizing for their rights and against
austerity. The PCs are trying to present themselves as a leopard that
can change its spots. Meanwhile the Liberals have unleashed a new round
of attacks on public sector workers to appease the ruling circles who
demand more funds be removed from social programs to pay the rich.
Their loss in Niagara Falls has not made them reconsider their fidelity
to austerity and their fraud of being more consultative and fair has
been completely exposed for all to see.
The response of the Liberals and PCs to their losses in
Niagara Falls shows that the workers' opposition to austerity continues
to make the Liberals and PCs flounder in their attempts to emerge
as champions for austerity. It is important now
to step up the tempo of actions against the anti-worker austerity
agenda no matter who puts it foward. The upcoming Liberal Annual
General Meeting being held
in Toronto March 21-23 will
be an important opportunity. Teachers and education workers, injured
workers, public servants and industrial workers under assault from the
monopolies which
governments refuse to stop are all favoured by fighting for their
rights and the rights of all. Let's make the Liberal AGM a new
expression of the determination
of the working people to reverse the austerity agenda and etablish a
new direction for Ontario!
Oppose Liberals' Vicious Assault on Public Servants
Like the Harper Conseratives, the Liberals and PCs are
both targeting for attack the public sector workers who deliver the
services Ontarians rely on. This
time it is the public servants.
The government's latest attack is on post-retirement
benefits of provincial civil servants. Around 84,000 members of the
Ontario Public Service (OPS) as
well as OPP officers, LCBO employees and others are said to be
affected. The government announced on February 18, the same day the
Legislature resumed, that
retiree benefits would move to "a cost-sharing model" for those who
retire on or after January 1, 2017. This was also the same day that the
government commenced bargaining with the Association of Management,
Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO).
Whereas the government as the employer
currently pays
100 per cent of the premiums, the announcement means those retiring on
or after that date will be forced to pay 50 per cent of the premiums
for a package of health benefits and life insurance. The change also
doubles the years of service required to be part of the retiree benefit
plan from 10 to 20
years and restricts membership in it to those who retire at the
earliest possible date they are eligible to receive an unreduced
pension.
In a February 20 report on its website, AMAPCEO detailed
what it
called an "offensive long list of concessions" presented by the
government on the first day of
bargaining. In reference to the government announcement about
retiree benefits, AMAPCEO stated that it "view[ed] this unilateral
action by the
Employer, announced deliberately at the
opening of bargaining, as a transparent attempt to intimidate our
members. The change itself is a rejection of longstanding commitments
the Employer has made
to our members and future retirees." The Association said it is
examining its legal options in respect of the announcement.
The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU)
which represents many members of the OPS said in a statement that the
average OPSEU retiree earns about $27,000 a year before deductions and
that an extra health premium of $1,500 per year for family coverage or
$800 for an individual would
equal a 5.5 per cent cut in income. Those who can't afford to pay the
$1,500 and drop out of the benefit plan altogether will end up taking a
loss in benefits worth
$3,000.
The extent of the government's dictate is such that it
did not even notify OPSEU before announcing the cuts to these benefits,
revealing once again the empty notion of
Wynne's self-proclaimed "consultative" approach and the reality of
further dictate. The rationale given by the government that it will
bring OPS
retiree benefits in line with other Canadian jurisdictions, the private
sector and other public sector organizations also once again reveals
the fraud of Wynne's
"fair" approach which tries to justify introducing retrogression into
the lives of all working people as the norm.
A letter to members posted on OPSEU Region 2 website had
this to say about the government's "fair" approach to labour relations:
"While some in the public may buy into
the distorted logic that since others don't have this type of
post-retirement benefit, neither should the OPS and LBED [Liqour Board
Employees Division].
Following that train of thought, we would all end up making minimum
wage, have no pensions, no benefits, etc. We as a Union are clear, it
is never a race
to the bottom. What we have, we want for everyone. [...] I have heard
many say in relation to a possible general election, anyone but Hudak.
I think it is
time we acknowledge that the Liberals are just as dangerous to us as
Hudak."
 Its arbitrary handling of
public servants' retiree
benefits is an indication of the approach the Liberal government will
take with other public sector workers who will head into
negotiations this year such as teachers and education workers, health
care workers and community college faculty and staff. It means being
ready to
fight to defend their rights.
Ontario Political Forum
denounces this unacceptable assault on retiring members of the public
service that echoes the Harper government's assault on retirees in the
federal public service. It should put everyone on notice once and for
all that the Liberals, like the PCs, can see no alternative other than
to attack
workers in order to pay the rich and must be defeated.
Hudak's Forced Retreat on Slave Labour Laws
Monthly picket
against austerity agenda
at Ontario PC Leader
Tim
Hudak's
constituency
office in Beamsville, July 2013.
Speaking to the Toronto Board of
Trade on February 21, following the defeat of the Liberals and
PCs in the Niagara Falls by-election , PC leader Tim Hudak
announced that if elected he would not proceed with his
right-to-be-slave-labour legislation known as "right-to-work" laws.
Trying to hide
his humiliation, he claimed that
such a direction would not be "effective." "After all, only 15 per cent
of
private sector workers in Ontario are unionized today. Most of them
aren't getting ahead, but
neither are the 85 per cent that are non-union," he said.
"This 'right to work' issue just doesn't have the scope
or the power to fix the issues that are threatening 100 per cent of the
manufacturing jobs in Ontario. So if
we're elected, we're not going to do it -- we're not going to change
the so-called 'Rand Formula.' Our agenda is a lot bigger, and a lot
more ambitious, than
that," he added. He then re-iterated his pledge to attack workers in
new ways by using a majority, if he wins it, to legislate public sector
wages and do away
with arrangements for skilled trades that defend public safety.
Some feel Hudak is still going to bring "right to work"
forward if his party becomes the government and that this should be the
main concern of the workers.
Others believe he has other things up his sleeve that are just as bad.
All of this is true. But for the working people, the main conclusion
they should draw is that by taking their independent initiatives and
not submitting to the blackmail that they should merely respond to what
they perceive to be the greatest evil, they can stay the hand of the
ruling circles and eventually reverse the entire austerity direction.
Like the Liberals with Bill 115, the PCs were forced to
back down by the resistance of the working
people during and between by-elections. The ruling circles were behind
the PCs' push for "right to work" laws up until the point the PCs could
not fulfill what
the polling firms tried to make happen in the by-elections, starting
with Kitchener-Waterloo. It was this resistance which allowed all those
opposed to slave
labour laws to join in and take a stand for their rights that blocked
the PCs.
Working people, by putting forward their own
independent politics and opposing neo-liberal assumptions which seek to
deprive them of their rights, have forced the PCs to back down
while the Liberals have not been able to recover. This has created a
whole new equation in which the ruling circles have been unable to
create a champion that can deliver their fraudulent austerity agenda.
Instead, the working people have gained valuable experience which has
shown that by taking the initiative and firmly defending their rights,
they can make headway.
Justice for injured Workers
Oppose Government's Latest Attack on
Workers' Right to Just Compensation
- Christine Nugent -
Workers in Ontario and their organizations should inform
themselves about the new draft benefits policies proposed by the
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board
(WSIB) that mark a severe shift in how benefits for work-related
injuries would be determined. Injured workers and their organizations
are responding
to the government's Benefits Policy Renewal and Evaluation Initiative
with the contempt it deserves and are saying No! to the proposed
policies.
The proposed benefits relate to several situations in
which injured workers can be assessed and denied benefits. For example,
one benefits policy proposal
would reduce compensation based on pre-conditions. The WSIB will have
the power to to cut off benefits to
workers injured on the job because they are assessed to have a
condition
which may show up later in life due to aging. This goes against the
principle of the
compensation system that workers injured on the job must
be compensated for the injury regardless of any other conditions they
have or may
develop.
There will be no recourse for WSIB benefit policy
decisions. Under the Harris government, Bill 99 established that if the
WSIB establishes a policy, the
Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT) rulings must
conform to that policy. The WSIAT has been part of the decision-making
on
appeals, using
medical evidence and developing the jurisprudence that is used to
establish injured workers' claims. This Benefits Policy Renewal, if
implemented, is how the government will usurp power from the WSIAT and
make legal that which was illegal.
The government attempted to push its plans through
denying the opportunity for injured workers and their organizations to
have a say. The Ontario
Federation of Labour and various injured workers groups and allies
demanded hearings, an extension on the February 28 deadline for
submissions and that
the government live up to the agreed-upon funding for injured worker
groups to prepare for consultations.
Just following the latest by-elections, which showed
that the workers in Ontario are taking up opposing the austerity agenda
of the Liberals and Conservatives, the
government reversed its decision to suppress consultations and extended
the time for consultations until the end of April. They also provided
the funds for the
injured workers' groups to prepare their views, as has been customary
in the past.
The experience of consultations organized by the
government is that they seek to imbue the workers with feelings of
humiliation and impotence that they can do noting about the attacks
against them. Cynically using a democratic form called consultations,
in fact they proceed to implement their austerity measures and the
popular demands of the people are ignored. If these benefits policies
go through, decisions will be made with the government escaping
oversight by any other bodies like the Appeals Tribunal. The
cost-saving measures of the WSIB are part of the plans to get rid of a
phony unfunded liability outlined by the Auditor General who has
declared that the government must retire this "debt." The government is
taking billions out of the WSIB funds on a false wind-up basis. On
whose
backs is this taking place?
In October 2013 Elizabeth Witmer, Chair of the WSIB,
reported the following on the WSIB unfunded liability to the Standing
Committee on Public Accounts in response to the Auditor General's
report :
"As you know, the board's costs were totally out of
control, and action was desperately needed to ensure the financial
sustainability of the board to ensure
that it could protect the 4.2 million workers and the 255,000 employers
it serves from the consequences of workplace injuries and illnesses,
while delivering
services to the quarter of a million people who are receiving benefits
and support from the board at any given time.
"I want to look first at the financial transformation of
the board as it pertains to our unfunded liability. As you know, that
was the biggest threat to our
system, and aggressive action, of course, has been taken by the
government and by the board. You've heard from the deputy that
legislation was passed that
requires us to reach 60 per cent funding by 2017, 80 per cent by 2022
and full funding
by 2027.
"I'm very pleased to say that we are currently
approaching 60 per cent and we are on track to meeting that requirement
in
2017. However, we can never forget that
our system is at a very delicate stage. I want to emphasize the fact
that the next funding requirement of 80 per cent by 2022 will be much
more
challenging to achieve,
so it is absolutely vital that we maintain our course."
Up until now the WSIB has achieved its 60 per cent
target on the backs of injured workers. It has frozen employer premiums
for 2014. It has
developed an aggressive return-to-work regime and denied injured
workers' claims which resulted in a tsunami of appeals in 2012 lined up
at the Appeals Tribunal.
Witmer's "challenge" to achieve WSIB's target of
retiring the debt, and WSIB president and CEO David Marshall's
admission that achieving the 60
per cent funding to date was the easy part, shows the determination of
this government to escalate the attacks on injured workers and all
workers who may face
possible injury at the workplace. This situation requires that the
people take up empowering themselves to organize to defend their rights
to just compensation
and to defeat any government that stands in the way of justice for
injured workers.
Injured Workers Resist Latest Attacks
on Their Benefits
The Workers' Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) launch of
the Benefits Policy Renewal and Evaluation Initiative is being met with
opposition by injured
workers, their organizations and allies across the province. Meetings
are being held in communities across Ontario to review the latest
government attack on
the benefits of injured workers. The WSIB, under the Wynne government's
watch, continues on a path of destroying the compensation system with
the goal
of removing a $16 billion "unfunded liability," a phony
accounting practice applied to workers' compensation. This is part of
the
government's plan to eliminate
the debt and deficit on the backs of injured workers as part of their
austerity agenda. All workers in Ontario have a stake in saying NO! to
the WSIB scheme
to cut more benefits from injured workers and to demand justice for
injured workers and a guarantee of compensation that is rightfully
theirs.
The key
benefit policies are: Policy
11-01-15, Aggravation Basis; Policy 15-03-01, Recurrences; Policy
18-05-09, NEL Redeterminations; Policy 11-01-05, Determining Permanent
Impairment;
and the new Policy 11-01-xx, Pre-existing Conditions.
Several organizations have responded to the government's
WSIB benefits review with the contempt that it deserves. The Bright
Lights Injured Workers' Group (BLIWG) in
Toronto in their letter to Elizabeth Witmer, Chair of the WSIB,
explains
how injured workers will
be affected:
"If they are implemented, the draft policies will
solidify a major shift in the WSIB's approach to decision-making, as
injured workers' disabilities will
systematically be blamed on 'pre-existing conditions' rather than the
workplace injury. These 'conditions' may have been asymptomatic and
undiagnosed prior
to the work accident and in many cases they are an entirely normal part
of the aging process. Rather than looking at how the workplace injury
affected the
worker's health, the Board will now be looking for these 'pre-existing
conditions' as a reason to deny ongoing benefits."
Presently a worker injured in the course of employment
is compensated for as long as the injury lasts and must not be
disqualified due to aging or some
previous condition that a worker suddenly endures. Over the past thirty
years the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, which was formed to
act as an
independent body to adjudicate appeals of workers and employers who
were dissatisfied with the final decisions of the WSIB, has played a
role in legal and
policy development. The governments' Benefits Policy Renewal and
Evaluation Initiative is a step towards legitimizing the Board's
decision-making powers
on compensation, thereby negating past experience of the tribunal.
Michelle Sweeney, president of the Ontario Network of
Injured Workers' Groups (ONIWG), in their submission explains one
principle used which determines
workers' right to compensation:
"The Workmen's
Compensation Act of 1914 clearly follows
Sir Meredith's principles including the incorporation of the 'thin
skull' principle of common
law into the Act. It clearly follows Sir Meredith's principles to
protect workers against wage loss due to workplace injury or disease
for as long as the disability
lasts. Employers pay premiums through compulsory collective liability
to ensure workers are covered against wage loss. Workers collectively
have given up
their right to sue their employer due to a work place injury. Under the
Benefit Policy Review the WSIB proposes policy changes which
effectively remove
the 'thin skull principle' from the WSIB policy. Therefore, injured
workers will risk finding themselves without protection against
workplace injuries while
their collective right to sue their employer is tied up neatly. This
means the pending policy changes discriminate against workers' rights
to fair and just wage
loss and treatment. At the same time their employers remain protected
by the WSI Act against lawsuits."
Injured workers and their organizations are demanding
that the government stop the direction it is taking the compensation
system. They say that more and
more injured workers are being denied benefits and these policy changes
will continue to put injured workers onto social programs like Ontario
Works and
Ontario Disability Support Program and the Ontario Health Insurance
Plan, thereby exempting the WSIB and employers from their societal
responsibility.
"Injured workers should not be falling under the
ideologies of temporary social welfare. Sir Meredith's principles were
not taken from the Charity
Organization Society (COS) or its counterpart settlement house movement
dating back to 1869. The COS and its' counterpart resulted from the
Elizabethan Poor
Laws of deserving and undeserving poor," says ONIWG. "The policies you
are proposing are contrary to the law and the practice of the board for
100 years.
They will cause poverty and uncertainty .... Like the Ontario
Federation of Labour we feel that this whole process should be
abandoned."
The results of the latest by-elections in several riding
in Ontario have shown the defeat of the Liberals and Conservatives and
their anti-social, anti-worker
agenda. Injured workers have participated in the various by-elections,
starting with Kitchener-Waterloo following the appointment of the
riding's Conservative
MPP, Elizabeth Witmer to the WSIB by the McGuinty government. Witmer
began the attack on injured workers' benefits back in the days of the
Harris
government. Now under the Wynne government, the Benefits Policy Review
sets the WSIB on the path of finishing what was started by the
Conservatives.
During by-elections and during the upcoming general election, injured
workers have something to say. They are determined to defeat those who
stand in
the way of their rights for a public, responsible compensation system
based on collective liability and comprehensive coverage.
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