| Justice for injured workers is available in Alberta, provided they can go roughly eight months without a paycheck, charge critics of the Workers Compensation Board (WCB).
Persistent and unacceptable delays at the WCB Appeals Commission have rendered several injured Alberta workers destitute, according to Edmonton MLA Ray Martin, in spite of WCB reforms.
Martin is calling for a "drastic overhaul" of the entire Workers Compensation Board system, citing failures at both the WCB and Appeals Commission levels to efficiently handle injury cases.
Changes to the WCB were aimed toward resolving cases before they make the big step to the Appeals Commission. The WCB says it now focuses heavily on its discussions with the worker in negotiating wage replacement, benefits, etc. The failure rate of these negotiations is 45 per cent.
Martin says the WCB often favours saving employers money over providing adequate compensation to workers.
"We believe there is a culture of denial (at the WCB)," says Martin. "If you come from within the WCB, it seems to be that you come from that culture and you think workers don’t deserve compensation."
When a worker is injured in Alberta, he or she, along with the employer, must negotiate a compensation deal with the WCB. After hearing the case, the board will make a decision based on factors like the severity of the injury and the circumstances in which it occurred.
According to Martin, these decisions are usually unsatisfactory to the employee. If the injured worker is unhappy with the decision, he or she has the option of taking the case to the WCB Appeals Commission, officially a separate entity from the WCB.
According to a report issued by the provincial government, this process takes at least 218 days and up to 280 days.
"By delaying the appeals, the government is denying justice to workers," says Martin.
The report, released in June, concludes that recent changes to the WCB are producing positive results despite the lengthy appeals process.
"When we first started the review several years ago the goal was to have fairness as seen by the worker," says Denis Herard, Minister of Human Resources. "I know that the WCB has taken steps to move from good to great. They have all the tools to continue to improve."
The number of appeals has gone down eight per cent since 2004, according to the WCB. According to the report, 65 per cent of the disputed decisions are resolved before going to the appeals commission.
Warren Fairhurst, a representative of injured workers across Canada, does not believe there has been a reduction in appeals going to the Appeals Commission in Alberta. Despite a 50 per cent increase in Appeals Commissioners, wait times are still an issue.
"The system has since become worse," says Fairhurst. "I don’t see where there have been any improvements. At best, it has stayed the same."
Himself a former employee with the WCB, Fairhurst says the decision review process, which is the last step before a case is taken to the Appeals Commission, has served, for the most part, as a formality. Due to the high cost of appealing a decision, he says many workers shy away from continuing the fight.
"In some cases I have had to put up my own money to prevent a client from losing his house," says Fairhurst, adding that many of his clients have lost their homes waiting for compensation.
Fairhurst says unfair WCB policies are largely to blame for the number of cases going to the Appeals Commission.
"Evidence is not weighed equally. You could have two orthopedic surgeons and an outside physician supporting the worker, but the WCB’s backroom medical advisor gets the final say even if he hasn’t seen the guy."
The WCB says it is working to increase dialogue between its medical advisors and outside physicians.
Fairhurst, who has dealt with WCB’s all across Canada, says Alberta lags behind Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and the Maritimes in terms of dispute resolution. Ontario, he says, is roughly equal in the number of cases that go to the Appeals Commission versus those that do not, while British Columbia is by far the worst. |
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