We Continue to Defend the Rights of Workers Who Are Victims of Work-Related Accidents and Illness
Union of Injured or Sick Workers (UTTAM) at protest outside
Quebec National Assembly, September 30, 2021, opposing
restructuring of the occupational health and safety system.
On October 6, more than 200 workers from several sectors gathered in front of the Montreal offices of the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) to affirm their determination to fight for their occupational health and safety rights. They were demonstrating in particular against the coming into effect of the Legault government's anti-worker Law 27, the Act to modernize the occupational health and safety system, which forces workers with occupational injuries to return to work prematurely, at the risk of aggravating their injury, and denies them compensation, forcing them onto social assistance. The main slogan of the rally was "No to forced labour!"
TML Daily is publishing below an interview conducted by Workers' Forum on these measures with Félix Lapan, community organizer of the Union of Injured or Sick Workers (UTTAM).
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Workers' Forum: What are the measures provided for in the Act to modernize the occupational health and safety system which came into effect on October 6?
Félix Lapan:These are measures that affect return to work and rehabilitation. Some of them affect injured workers during their medical period, i.e., before their condition has stabilized. This is the power to determine rehabilitation measures before consolidation.[1] The CNESST can therefore decide on rehabilitation measures while people are undergoing medical monitoring or treatment, which may include return to work. This amounts to a power to impose light work. There is currently a procedure for assigning light work, called a temporary assignment. The employer can offer a temporary assignment, but it must be approved by the attending physician.
In addition the CNESST can impose return to work by saying that it has reason to believe that the worker is able to work say three half-days per week, that this will be beneficial to him or her. And the CNESST can impose it. We will see how they will apply it but it is an aspect that worries us.
Also for the period preceding consolidation, a new temporary assignment form has been introduced that employers must use. With the introduction of this form, a physician must justify their refusal of a temporary assignment for their patient. Until now, all they had to do was say no, that they did not agree with the proposed assignment. This change complicates the refusal process. This also opens the door to the CNEEST imposing return to work even when the doctor has refused the temporary assignment on the basis that the injured worker cannot perform some of the tasks required. The CNESST could say that the worker must return to work, with the restriction specified by the doctor, and it could do so without going through the doctor.
Another change is that the law previously stipulated that a person on temporary assignment had to be paid 100 per cent of their salary regardless of the number of hours they worked. This is no longer the case. In the provisions that have come into force, it is now law that the employer can choose to pay the salary at 100 per cent of what it was before the injury, or pay only the hours worked and the CNESST covers the remainder, up to the income replacement indemnity. People will have to work and do their treatment at the same time, while being paid 90 per cent of their salary.
FO: What measures concern changes after consolidation?
FL: Since October 6, a person who is between 55 and 59 years old and who develops an occupational disease will still be rehabilitated by the CNESST if they can no longer do their job. Previously these people had their income protected until retirement age. They were declared unemployable and were paid until retirement. This protection now disappears and these people will have to look for a new job elsewhere in the labour market despite their advanced age.
Most importantly there is a change to the definition of suitable employment that will make it more difficult to challenge suitable employment. From now on, it will be necessary to prove that one is incapable of performing so-called main tasks without regard to the so-called accessory or secondary tasks of a suitable job. In other words, if someone wants to challenge the suitability of a job, the challenge will not be valid if they are only unable to perform the so-called secondary or accessory tasks.
Also, previously, when you were declared able to do a suitable job that you had to look for in the labour market, you were automatically entitled to a year of compensation that the CNEEST called a year of job search. There are people who found a job, say, after three months, and in that case the allowance stopped. But there are people who said they wanted to go back to school, take a course, do a DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies), and they were entitled to a year without having to look for a job. Now they will have a job search obligation and not collaborating with the job search assistance services becomes grounds to suspend their allowance.
Our biggest fear is that the CNESST will send people to these services who will ask for an accounting, including the number of applications they have made, and will start cutting allowances on this basis.
What has come into force, therefore, are measures to sometimes force a premature return to work and to force people who lose their jobs as a result of their injury to return more quickly to the labour market or face coercive measures if they don't.
The obvious objective of these
measures is to save employers money. This objective has existed
in the plan for a long time, and the intended target has always
been serious injuries, chronic cases, those most ill and people
disabled as a result of accidents. These people are easy to beat
about, especially non-unionized workers. The new law allows them
to go much further in this direction, with measures like the
ones I just mentioned.
WF: What does UTTAM see in the coming period with regard to the defence of injured and sick workers?
FL: We will continue to mobilize to defend the rights of victims of occupational injuries and protest injustices and demand change. At the same time, the law provides that the Minister of Labour must submit a report to the National Assembly on the impact of the law, no later than October 6, 2026. We will therefore document the effects of the law, examine how the CNESST applies the new provisions and take the opportunity of the Minister's report to relaunch the public debate on the law and request the necessary changes.
Note
1. Consolidation is the healing or stabilization of an employment injury following which no improvement in the state of health of the worker who suffered this injury is foreseeable. Vocational rehabilitation is a set of measures aimed at reintegrating an injured or ill worker into the workplace. It includes things like a retraining program, vocational training, and adapting a workstation to the worker's condition.
(Translated from the original French by TML)
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 45 - November 14, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520453.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca