UFCW Canada and UFCW Local 175 & 633 joined the Ontario Network of Injured Worker Groups outside the Ontario Ministry of Labour for a rally in support of injured workers.

The Ontario Network of Injured Worker Groups is demanding that the Ontario government act and take basic steps to ease the awful poverty experienced by those who have been hurt or injured on the job. The government needs to honour its election promise of raising Loss of Earnings benefits to 90% of pre-injury wages.

In addition, the government must remember and act on three core demands of ONIWG's Workers' Comp is a Right Campaign:

1. No cuts based on phantom jobs: End deeming and phantom jobs. Stop cutting injured and ill worker benefits by pretending they have a job when they are unable to work or find suitable work. The government must pass anti-deeming legislation.

2. Listen to injured workers’ treating healthcare professionals: stop ignoring the advice of workers' treating physicians in favour of the clearly flawed opinions of "paper doctors" who never meet or examine the injured or ill worker.

3. Stop cutting benefits based on asymptomatic pre-existing conditions: this practice cuts workers off benefits by blaming so-called "pre-existing conditions" for workers' injuries, even if the condition never caused the work to feel any pain or miss a single day of work for their entire pre-injury life.

To learn more, go to Workers Comp is a Right Campaign