Steelworkers call for WSIB to recognize more cancer claims
The United Steelworkers (USW) is calling for the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to recognize more workplace cancer claims.
The union has thrown its weight behind a study produced by the Occupational Cancer Research Centre (OCRC). In it, OCRC director Dr. Paul Demers indicates that an estimated 3,000 occupational cancers occur every year in Ontario, but only about 400 compensation claims are made by workers and survivors to the WSIB, with only 170 claims accepted.
The report, which was released by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development earlier this year, shows that the rate of all accepted cancer claims in Ontario in 2018 was 2.9 per 100,000 insured workers. That is significantly lower than many countries in the European Union.
In his report, Demers made 11 recommendations to increase the recognition of occupational cancer, improve the adjudication of occupational cancer claims, and contribute to improved prevention of occupational cancers. They include:
- expanding the ability to investigate occupational disease clusters,
- developing more policies to recognize cancers caused by well-established workplace carcinogens,
- developing policies to consider the impact of multiple exposures,
- creating an independent scientific review panel to review and update WSIB policies, and
- improving medical education on occupational cancer to increase recognition.
Demers says in his report that Ontario’s policies and regulations on specific cancers are often unfairly restrictive and have not kept pace with findings of respected scientific bodies like the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Such policy changes are overdue and are crucial in providing justice to victims of occupational cancers and to improve prevention, says USW Ontario Director Marty Warren.
“Recognition of work-related cancers is the first necessary step to preventing them in the future,” he says. “The science has been there for years. Carcinogens don’t cancel each other out or operate in a vacuum. Asbestos, diesel exhaust, silica, tobacco smoke and arsenic aren’t competing inside the lungs. They act together and multiply each other’s cancer-causing effects.”
“If the WSIB and Ministry of Labour don’t act on the Demers policy agenda immediately, it’s a sign that they have no intention of acting at all.”
The USW is endorsing a demand by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) that the WSIB suspend overly restrictive cancer policies and enact Demers’ recommended policies on multiple exposures by Labour Day.
“It is now clear from the report itself that hundreds, even thousands, more claims have been unjustly denied in the past and require urgent review,” said OFL president Patty Coates. “The WSIB must act immediately on the recommendation to create new policies addressing exposure to multiple carcinogens in the workplace and the interaction between occupational and non-occupational exposures.”