Injured workers from across the province will gather in Toronto once more on June 1, Injured Workers Day, to call public attention to the explosive growth of precarious work in Ontario that is making more and more workplaces less and less safe. To make matters worse, workers now face ever-greater obstacles to qualify for compensation for workplace injuries from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). In recent years, the WSIB has dramatically upped its rate of claims denial to cut its unfunded liability, even as it is cutting employer premiums. And the WSIB’s unwavering stance on workplace disease appears to be a modern-day version of “no comp for the widow.”
Health care for injured workers is right, not a luxury. Please join injured workers as they once again deliver the message that “Work should not hurt!”
May 31: Queen’s Park, Toronto
Cultural showcase and dinner at 7 p.m.
Overnight vigil begins at 8 p.m.
Join the Women of Inspiration Injured Workers Group for a “cultural showcase” to celebrate the resilience of injured workers through music, poetry, storytelling, and satire. The injured workers bike riders from Ottawa will be joining the vigil.
June 1, 11:30 a.m., Queen’s Park, Toronto
Injured Workers Day rally and march
Despite the epidemic of precarious, unsafe, and toxic work, the WSIB is more concerned with its own bottom line than with protecting the well-being of injured workers. We need to come together and demand our right to compensation. Join us on the streets! Click here for details.
June 1, 2 p.m., OCAD Auditorium (100 McCaul St., Room 190, Toronto)
Panel discussion: Fighting back against unsafe and toxic work
This panel discussion will feature workers who are organizing in different sectors but on similar issues. We aim to open a conversation on how we can connect our organizing efforts and bring together a powerful, worker-led front for safe work and full compensation. Featured speakers include:
- Len Elliott, OPSEU Region 1 Regional Vice-President and health and safety advocate
- Sue James, retired worker from the Peterborough GE factory
- Janice Martell, OPSEU member and founder of the McIntyre Powder Project
- Heather Neiser, health care worker and anti-workplace violence activist with OCHU