THUNDER BAY – WSIB workers are entering their sixth week on the picket line, where union leaders are demanding that WSIB Ontario come back to the table with a fair deal.
April Leblanc, vice president of regions for OCEU Local 1750, joined workers on line at the corner of 605 Sibley Drive and Balmoral Street.
She told Newswatch they’re “waiting for the employer to bring us back a fair deal.”
The union said they want fair wages, safer workplaces and an end to the outsourcing of Ontario jobs to U.S.-based firms.
According to Leblanc, it is much more than that.
She said the company need to hire more people to help relieve stressful workload pressures.
“It's not about the language of the job duties themselves. It is more about having the resources, so needing more people. WSIB is a complicated system serving the injured workers of Ontario. The decisions that you make are not light decisions. They're actually very heavy decisions. You're affecting people's lives, so you do require a significant amount of time and expertise in order to fulfill your duties in those roles. And right now, there's just not enough people in order to be able to do that,” Leblanc said.
Aaron Lazarus vice president of communications for the WSIB, said they have hired 100 more people to work on claims.
“We've made a commitment as part of this round of bargaining that we're going to work with our joint committee between the union and us to add more resources to that so that we can bring that number down further, faster. We've been able to make these kinds of investments and improvements,” Lazarus said.
Leblanc said that talks between the union and the company have grown “pretty quiet.”
“We've been going for long periods of time. Upwards of five or 10 days waiting for a response. The union has been ready 24/7 to be at the bargaining table with this employer. It's the employer that has not been at the table with us, and they seem to lack the ability to send decision makers to the table,” she said.
However, Lazarus said discussions with the union have been ongoing through a mediator, including a discussion today.
“It's not always a meeting per se, so there's back and forth with the mediator depending on what he's asking of each party or whether there are different proposals going back and forth, but I would say it is ongoing, including today,” Lazarus said.
He also noted that union leadership needs to “come to the table and accept yes as an answer.”
Leblanc said WSIB's chief people officer, Anna Filice, is at the bargaining table, but she doesn't seem to have the best interests of the workers or the injured workers of Ontario’s best interest.”
She also said that WSIB president, Jeff Lang, "has never been at the bargaining table.”
“He has also never had any communication with the union or our local president in the last two years. He doesn't seem to want to have any working relationship with the union at all,” Leblanc said.