The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has slashed hundreds of jobs across the province, including more than 200 jobs in Northern Ontario — 55 of them in Thunder Bay, the union representing its workers says.
On Wednesday, the WSIB gave the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU), which represents WSIB employees, an overview of the closure of the Northern Ontario offices and job cuts, which included those in Thunder Bay, 20 in Sault Ste. Marie, 15 in North Bay, 12 in Timmins and 136 in Sudbury, the union says.
Harry Goslin, president of the OCEU, said it took 20 to 25 years for the WSIB to establish its footprint in the North.
“They are looking to unwind that in six months,” Goslin said. “Offices closed, employees gone or possibly relocated, the entire organization is just in pandemonium.”
Goslin said on Wednesday that the WSIB called employees from across the province in affected areas to a virtual meeting and delivered the message that 466 people would be made redundant effective immediately.
“Then they said they were not prepared to take any questions, and then they walked away,” he said. “The union met with these people and talked about the devastating impacts that this has on their lives. We heard that for many people, the option to relocate to one of the Toronto locations is just not something they’re going to be able to do.”
He said these are people who have been longtime employees who helped the organization make it through the pandemic and did the work from their kitchen table to keep things going and protect those workers in Ontario that they’re here to serve.
“There are no answers about how many jobs are waiting for them in the GTA,” Goslin said. “They can’t even tell them how many (employees) can be accommodated, so this could result in mass job bumping and create just unbelievable pandemonium.”
Goslin said the OCEU will do everything it can to “turn over every stone” to keep these jobs and will look into the Ontario Community Jobs Initiative, aimed at relocating government jobs to underserved areas in Ontario.
Kevin Holland, MPP for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, says that while the WSIB is an independent, arm’s-length agency responsible for its own operational and staffing decisions, he shares the concerns being expressed in the community.
“Labour Minister David Piccini assured me that our government expects the WSIB to continue delivering the income replacement, health care, and return-to-work supports that injured workers rely on,” Holland said. “Front-line staff, including return-to-work specialists, will continue serving workers in the region, and injured workers should experience no disruption in service.”
Holland says the WSIB has committed to providing career counselling, resume support, job-search assistance, continued benefits, and mental health resources to support employees through this transition.
Steve Mantis, founder of the Thunder Bay Injured Workers Support Group and known advocate for injured workers, said the news of the closures is both surprising and disappointing.
“The impacts we’ll see are a lack of understanding of what our economy is like in the North, what types of industry and jobs there are and the relationships with the community, with the employers,” Mantis said. “Certainly it’ll be much more difficult to establish relationships between the workers who need help and staff at the WSIB.”
He added that having the knowledge of the work environment is important to be able to understand the dynamics and make appropriate decisions.
“We’re going to be losing that for sure,” he said.
