Injured workers left struggling because the compensation board is failing to apply annual cost-of-living increases to benefit payments, advocates say.
Injured workers are losing out on vital compensation because the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is failing to apply cost-of-living benefit increases as required by law, critics say.
But this year, workers will get a 2.7 per cent bump — significantly less than what advocates say they are owed.At the heart of the dispute is how to interpret the legal mandate to annually adjust injured workers’ benefits. The law says the calculation should be based on changes to living costs from “the 12-month period ending on Oct. 31 of the previous year.”
But at a time when inflation has increased dramatically after years of relative stability, workers are now losing out, said lawyer Antony Singleton. Many accident victims are “already living in poverty,” said Chris Grawey, Community Legal Worker at the Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic. As inflation rises, the 2.7 per cent compensation increase is “only going to exacerbate and perpetuate” that issue, he said.
Those moves attracted ire from injured worker advocates who say employers with poor safety records will be eligible for the rebates — even as accident victims have faced constraints on benefits for years.
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