Injured workers and allied groups rallied on the steps of the Ministry of Labour in the rain Monday, demanding the provincial government scrap a plan to return a $2.5-billion Workplace Safety and Insurance Board surplus to employers.
Injured workers said the move is unfair and that the WSIB’s surplus is money rightfully owed to them — not their bosses.
“That money is our money,” said Sultana Jahangir, executive director of the South Asian Women's Rights Organization. “The injury is not my fault. The injury is the employers’ fault.”
The provincial government announced the WSIB rebate in late November. It is a repeat of a policy Ontario Premier Doug Ford rolled out prior to the last provincial election in 2022. Ford is widely expected to call an early election next year.
WSIB is funded by premiums paid by Ontario employers. If a worker is injured on the job, they can apply to WSIB for income support.
Over the past several years, the agency has accumulated billions in surplus funds.
On its website, the WSIB said the surplus is the result of financial and investment strategies that have performed well — but injured workers say otherwise.
A report published Monday by the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups’ and allied organizations claimed the surplus is the result of cuts to injured workers' benefits.
No money should be returned to employers until all injured and ill workers’ receive full and fair compensation, said Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups organizer Willy Noiles.
“Injured workers are always at the bottom of the goddamned barrel," Noiles told the crowd outside the ministry building on University Avenue.
The report argued the agency has used practices such as “deeming” to reduce the amount owed to injured workers.
Through this practice, a construction worker hurt while earning $25 per hour could be “deemed” fit by the WSIB to work a lower-paid job, like grocery store clerk.
This practice reduces the level of income support the WSIB provides to an injured worker, even if the worker has been unsuccessful landing a clerk job after hundreds of applications, the report said.
Christine Arnott, public affairs manager with WSIB Ontario, said that to determine post-injury earnings, the agency only considers jobs that the person can perform, actually exist and are in demand in the labour market.
“We’ve been able to help almost 9 out of 10 people who miss work because of an injury safely return to their job with no wage loss within 12 months,” she said.
Arnott said the WSIB provides annual increases to income support so injured workers can keep up with inflation. In 2024, the agency increased benefit rates by 4.4 per cent and said injured workers will see another increase in 2025.
On its website, the WSIB said qualifying businesses will receive surplus funds via a credit applied to their WSIB account in February.
A construction business with 50 employees could receive as much as $46,000 as a result of the rebate, according to a provincial press release.
The government said in the release that the rebate would only go to “safe employers” that have not had recent convictions under provincial labour law.
But Sanghun Mun, a former roofer in Toronto who attended the rally, called the rebate plan “disgusting.”
In a workplace accident in 2005, Mun fell from a roof, breaking his foot, neck, back and shoulder, he said.
An immigrant from South Korea, Mun was not initially aware of WSIB, but was eventually able to access income support through the agency with help of injured workers’ groups, he said.
Yet after three months of support, Mun alleged the WSIB cut his benefits, arguing he was ready to go back to work.
“I couldn’t work property — I was still on the crutches. [But the WSIB said] ‘You are fully recovered. You can go back to work,’” he said.
With the help of a community legal clinic, Mun had his income support reinstated, but he said many others are not so lucky.
The practice of providing WSIB surpluses to employers was recommended to the Ministry of Labour in an independent review in 2019.
