One of the stories that is being hidden from us by the MSM is that of the changing legislation to the Compensation Act. Our friend Eyes Wide Open(Powell River Persuader) has a personal story at The Straight Goods I know first hand that this is not a isolated incident. Since 2001 the WCB has become a tool for business. They use it under the new legislation to refuse paying people injured on the job.
You see if someone has a compensable injury at your workplace then the rates paid to WCB by your company go up. If they can keep you working then they have a lower rate. And if you can't return to work at your old job,WCB tells you to work elsewhere. Thus keeping their payments down.
This story is a good read and shows the callousness of the staff at the WCB. In part this staff can't be totally blamed because they work at the discretion of their managers. I say totally because they could stand up and be counted. Do it as a group.
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I have no doubt that the newly re-branded WCB (or WorkSafe) has deterioated under the vile management of the Campbell Crime Family, to suggest it has only "become a tool for business" since 2001 is misleading. The primary raison d'etre for WCB in it's creation was to indemnify EMPLOYERS from liability for injuries to workers due even to employer negilgence.
I'll admit that brazen negligence and repeated violations of WCB regulations does indeed cost the employer in increased premiums and/or penalties. But still the employer enjoys an immunity from being actually sued by the injured employee, which without the free pass from liability gained by joining WCB could be much more costly than participation in the program.
To the employer Worksafe is just a cost of doing business and to an employee mainly a source of harassment if injured or the invisible agency before the fact in terms of preventing workplace hazards. It's really all about covering the employer's ass!
When I logged on the North Coast during the recent Jurassic Age - well early seventies, we were more likely to see officials from the DFO from Ottawa concerned about damage to a stream from road construction than a WCB inspector farther afield than the log dump!
Of course now most large corporations devise methods of downloading even WorkSafe participation unto the workers themselves as with the contract falling now standard in the industry. As an independent contractor the faller must provide his own first aid, ambulance, communication etc. etc. and even though the numbers employed in BC's forests have declined precipatiously, injuries and fatalities match those of the sixties and seventies. Watching the documentary about the death of (faller)"Turbo" Ted is enough to disgust any person with a sense of fairness - as his death was completely un-necessary and in earlier times he would have been likely to have survived the same accident!
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