Is the Workplace safety and Insurance Board breaking the Historic Compromise? 100 years ago workers gave up the right to sue their employers in return for fair compensation. These changes on top of what has been done over the last 30 years, dont even come close to sir William Merediths principles. Merediths Principles - As head of the Royal Commission (1910-1913) charged with recommending a workers compensation system for Ontario, Sir William Meredith aimed to ensure a fair system - one that would prevent injured workers from falling into poverty, that did not unduly burden employers, and that would not shock the conscience of the public. Read how he balanced the views of worker and employer to make principled decisions on who would pay for the system, who and how would workers be covered, who would administer the system and what kind of benefits would workers receive? - he also stated I believe the true aim of a compensation law is to provide for the injured workman and his dependents and to prevent their becoming a charge upon their relaties or friends, or upon the community at large. A just compensation law...ought to provide that the compensation should continue to be paid as long as the disability caused by the accident lasts, and the amount of compensation should have relation to the earning power of the injured workman. Meredith`s Final Paragraph In thes days of social and industrial unrest it is, in my judgment, of the gravest importance to the community that every proved injustice to any sections or class resulting from bad or unfair laws should be promptly removed by the enactment of remedial legislation and I do not doubt that the country whose Legislature is quick to discern and prompt to remove injustice will enjoy, and that deservedly, the blessing of industrial peace and freedom from social unrest. Half measures which mitigate but do not remove injustice are, in my judgment to be avoided. That the existing law inflicts injustice on the workingman is admitted by all. From that injustice e has long suffered, and it would, in my judgement, be the gravest mistake if questions as to the scope and character of the proposed remedial legislation were to be determined, not by a consideration of what is just to the workingman, but of what is the least he can be put off with, or if the Legislative were to be deterred from passing a law designed to do full justice owing to groundless fears that disaster to the industries of the Province would follow rom the enactment of it. read the final article in this paper and tell me that the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is being Fair or Just. cpcml.ca/OPF2014/OP0312.HTM#4
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 03:44:45 +0000