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Health & Safety Workers' Compensation A strained back from lifting loads at work, or sore wrists from typing at the office - work missed because of the pain means missed wages. Recovery might require a trip to the chiropractor's or to see an occupational therapist. But who will pay the fees?
Workers' compensation boards across Canada report an average of a million work injuries each year. Injuries vary from hearing loss, back, foot and leg disorders, neck, shoulder and hand injuries to illnesses like asthma, emphysema, skin disease and cancer.
Federal, provincial and territorial laws explain that workers injured or made ill by work receive money and services as compensation. While governments make workers' compensation laws, these laws are administered by workers' compensation boards.
Not all workers who are sick or injured from work get workers' compensation, though. A worker can get compensation only if the worker's employer has registered with the provincial or territorial workers' compensation board.
Certain industries, according to the law, don't have to register. Registered employers are the bodies which fund workers' compensation. Compensation boards' administration of funds involves deciding how much a registered employer pays into the fund, and deciding the amount and length of time a sick or injured worker receives compensation for medical expenses and lost wages. If a worker's employer is not registered with the appropriate workers' compensation board, the injured or ill worker can retrieve lost wages and medical expenses by suing the employer. A worker gives up the right to sue the employer in exchange for the employer's registration with a workers' compensation board.
Before a worker receives compensation, the compensation board decides whether or not the injury or illness was caused by work. In most territories and provinces, the worker fills in a form, making a claim for compensation. A doctor or medical professional (chiropractor, etc.) fills in a form, too, after examining the injured or ill worker. The employer fills in a form as well. Sometimes, the forms completed by the worker, doctor and employer assert conflicting information. After considering all the information, the workers' compensation board gives an injured or ill worker compensation for lost wages and medical expenses only if the board decides that the injury or illness was caused by work, during the time the worker was actually working.
To learn more about workers' compensation, click on the provincial, territorial or federal tab for the workers' compensation law that applies to you. If you're unsure whether your workplace falls under provincial or federal law, click here to check.
A unionized worker with a work injury or a work illness can check her or his collective agreement, or speak to a union steward about workers' compensation. There may be a clause in the collective agreement which requires the employer to register with a worker's compensation board, which legally doesn't have to register with the workers' compensation board, to register. Or there may be a clause in the collective agreement that requires the employer to rehire a worker made ill or injured at work, and change the way the work is undertaken so that it better suits the worker's altered state of health and ability. |
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