After a six-week strike, workers at Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) ratified a new contract on Sunday. While Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives redirected WSIB funds back into the hands of bosses, workers at the agency faced wage suppression and “crushing workloads.”
Ratification passed with 72.5% in favour, bringing the WSIB workers' first-ever strike to a close. After being locked out by their employer on May 21, some 3,600 WSIB workers represented by the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU) took to the picket lines to win better working conditions and pay.
In November 2024, Premier Doug Ford took $2.5 billion of the organization’s funds produced by premiums and handed it back to businesses. Ford argued this “rebate” was supposed to help protect workers by giving their injury insurance money back to “safe businesses.”
2022 saw an increase of workplace injury claims in Ontario to 255,251, compared to 225,000 in 2021 and 200,578 in 2020. The funds that the provincial government gave back to bosses could have been used to address the salary and workload grievances of the workers processing those claims.
Workers at the WSIB, like many public sector employees, were impacted by the Ford government's Bill 124, which limited public service pay raises to 1% annually. However, unlike many other public services, taxpayers do not fund the WSIB or its workers' salaries. Rather, it is funded exclusively by employer premiums.
The provincial Conservatives introduced Bill 124 to curtail spending on public sector wages in 2019. The Ontario Superior Court struck down the law as unconstitutional in 2022. Still, WSIB workers have been facing real wage cuts imposed by the provincial government and are struggling to keep up with inflation.
The OCEU reported that before a tentative deal was reached, union president Harry Goslin received a phone call from Premier Ford in which Goslin “raised the union’s key concerns including wages, crushing workloads, the outsourcing of 26 Ontario jobs to a U.S. company, and the deteriorating quality of service for injured workers and employers across the province.”
The U.S. company in question is Iron Mountain, a data-management firm. Recently, the company has been accused of overcharging government agencies and illegally raising rates.
In the union's latest press release, Goslin says, “We were able to secure the best possible outcome, and we successfully pushed back against the employer’s attacks on union seniority rights.” The ratified deal includes a 6.75% raise over three years, and clauses addressing workloads.