PHOTOS: Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray. Below: Alberta Workers Compensation Board CEO Guy Kerr and the members of the WCB Panel, labour relations consultant Mia Norrie, labour lawyer John Carpenter, and Covenant Health labour relations consultant Pemme Cunliffe.

Perhaps the two most symbolically important and potentially beneficial changes to Alberta’s Workers Compensation system contained in the recommendations of a three-member independent review panel that were released by the province yesterday were:

  1. The prohibition on the use of so-called performance pay, pay-at-risk, bonuses or other programs that tie compensation of WCB employees – especially senior executives – to corporate-style performance measures.
  2. Ending the practice of distributing “surplus” funds each year to employers, instead of using them for what they were intended – helping working people who are injured or made sick by their work.

While it is not clear what percentage of the WCB’s top management’s obviously excessive salaries are made up of bonuses and other perks, this approach to executive pay is unquestionably a pernicious practice of the sort that bedevils Workers Compensation boards in Alberta and throughout Canada.

The kind of thinking behind such policies, as well as the stratospheric salaries paid to senior executives, encourages practices that undermine the no-fault principles at the base of the entire Canadian Workers Compensation system and in turn lead to many grave injustices to sick and injured workers.

In 2015, publication of the government’s “sunshine list” of public sector salaries revealed, Alberta WCB President and CEO Guy Kerr was paid close to $900,000 in salary and benefits. In the same year, the Board’s five vice-presidents were paid salaries ranging from $468,000 to $600,000.

Conservative governments consistently argue that overpaying and over-bonusing corporate executives hired to run these public service boards enables the hiring of the best people for the jobs. Could be. I’m certainly not going to say the WCB isn’t run by capable executives. But I’ll guarantee you one result is consistently that these top executives emphasize the practices the three panel members damned in the report released yesterday.

Hitherto, when there have been disagreements between the WCB and the people it exists to serve, the report said, management has leaned toward managing claims “in aggressive accordance with strict rules, even when the resulting decisions fly in the face of common sense. This raises frustration among workers and employers alike and it contributes to a perception that the WCB has a ‘culture of denial.’” So true.

The report continued: “Rather than decision-making that focuses on assisting people with their injuries, illnesses or concerns, the system’s decision making currently focuses on efficient management of claims. Too often, it seems, the latter is given attention at the expense of the former.”

The second pernicious practice mentioned above, distributing “surplus” money to employers instead of spending where it is supposed to be spent, on ill and injured workers, is a byproduct of this common approach to reward “efficient” claims management. This too has contributed to the subversion of Workers Compensation’s no-fault principles, and without doubt in many workplaces results in workers being actively discouraged from reporting injuries to pad the corporate bottom line.

Obviously, not all employers behave this way. Some companies and individuals will do the right thing regardless. But when you provide a cash incentive to anti-social behaviour, what else do you expect to happen?

High-paid executives, beneficiaries of the old system, will hate this proposal. If the government of Premier Rachel Notley implements the recommendations as it should, some of them will leave. This, I would suggest, will not be much of a loss. Other executives who will do good work for less, and with a sense of public service, can be found. Mr. Kerr’s salary, remember, was double the amount paid the same year to his counterpart in Ontario – a job that didn’t go unfilled.

Corporations that get the annual surplus caused by their lack of claims – for whatever reason – will hate it too, and will curse the NDP. So what else is new?

This is why, presumably, the first and loudest screams yesterday from the Opposition Wildrose Party and their Astro-Turf allies were about the recommendation to end the misuse of “surplus” cash.

Of course, their protests yesterday didn’t mention that Alberta’s WCB premiums remain the lowest in Canada and contribute to the underfunding that is at the root of many of the Board’s problems and recent wrong turns.

WCB Chair Jim Kindrake issued a diplomatically uninformative statement, thanking the panel for its insights, restating the Board’s independence, and promising to review the panel’s recommendations and work with the government. In other words, nothing to see here, folks, please move along …

In all, the panel – made up of labour relations consultant Mia Norrie as neutral chair, labour lawyer John Carpenter, a partner with Chivers Carpenter, representing workers, and Covenant Health in-house labour relations consultant Pemme Cunliffe representing employers – made 60 recommendations.

The panel received approximately 1,700 questionnaire responses and more than 500 written submissions, the government’s news release said.

The report argued the philosophy of Workers Compensation should put “the health and well-being of injured workers at the centre of the … system.”

This “should be the shared goal that all partners have in mind when they approach the system and towards which all the partners should work.”

Of course, any government’s panel would likely say the same thing. What makes this one different – as illustrated by the recommendations – is that it appears to mean it.

Fourteen recommendations deal with shifting the culture of the WCB toward a “worker-centred” orientation. Another seven deal with taking a better approach to health, including enabling workers to use their own physicians, and establishing a fair medical dispute resolution mechanism.

Nineteen recommendations deal with the return-to-work process for sick and injured workers. These include: Amending the Workers Compensation Act to obligate employers to help employees return to work, enabling the appeals commission to take note that certain types of employment are associated with certain illnesses, and requiring employers to continue covering injured workers under their existing health benefits programs.

Other recommendations in this section include amending the term “first responder” to enable presumptive coverage of PTSD to be extended to additional occupations. Unfortunately, the panel did not recommend expanding Alberta’s legislated presumptions beyond those currently in place. So the situation will prevail a while yet in which male dominated, uniformed professions benefit from the presumption, while female-dominated professions like nursing, whose practitioners are just as likely to suffer PTSD, do not. Sad.

Seventeen recommendations deal with making the system more sustainable, including streamlining the appeals approach, publishing decisions of the WCB Appeals Commission online, and, as noted, ending the practice of misusing “surplus” funds to reward employers for whatever.

Three recommendations call for changes to support prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses. These include requiring safety associations funded through WCB funds to satisfy oversight requirements, and amending the Act to give the WCB authority to collect information relevant to the prevention of workplace injury and disease and disclose it to the Labour Department’s Occupational Health and Safety division.

Panel members deserve Albertans’ thanks for their work, as does Labour Minister Christina Gray, who appointed the three to the independent review.

But Ms. Gray also needs to get on with implementing the recommendations, and all she has really committed to at this point is to review them “over the coming months before making any legislative changes.” This is not as reassuring as it might be.

If yesterday’s report indeed becomes the basis of legislated policy, it will be interesting to see if Progressive Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney will include these small changes in his Trump-like vow to eliminate every single piece of NDP Legislation in a single session of the Legislature. After all, they would make life vastly better for ordinary working people, somewhat less luxurious for big-shot executives, and only insignificantly more expensive for a few irresponsible corporate employers. So I guess we know the answer to that one.

Join the Conversation

12 Comments

  1. “After all, they would make life vastly better for ordinary working people, somewhat less luxurious for big-shot executives, and only insignificantly more expensive for a few irresponsible corporate employers.”
    sounds like
    ‘for the many, not the few’ 😉

    1. DON’T JOIN THE TRADES IN ALBERTA!
      WCB has lied to us, they don’t cover any injuries from my experience. After 13 years in the plumbing and gas fitting trade and 10/10 wcb claims denied for me. I have decided to quit the trades, to pursue career in art. Every time WCB denies your injury claim, you will be forced to go back to work injured. And continue doing the same work that caused your injury. I have tried to continue working through the extreme back pain, but now I can barely stand or walk. So it is plain to see that wcb’s only purpose is to prevent injured employees from being able to sue the companies that caused their injury. This is the contrary to what WCB is supposed to do. I had one instance where I was denied for an injury resulting from carrying 100 lb pipes for 3-5 kilometres a day. And WCB said I must have slept funny and denied me lol!
      So, being that we are injuring ourselves so a company can get rich.. while we receive no help to recover. And are being condemned to spend the rest of our lives in agony. What is the point in working any physical job in Alberta?
      There is no point… heed my words apprentices and young people thinking of joining the trades- RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!! Your own health is more important than your worthless companies profits. Don’t ever think that the trades are long term careers, because they are nothing more than a source of short term income in exchange for a lifetime of pain and suffering.

      Canada’s shortage of skilled trades people is well deserved. The trades promote an atmosphere of disrespect. Lack of unions mean that you have no rights as an employee and your company is free do as they please and treat you like a worthless piece of garbage. Which as a new apprentice you can expect to be belittled, called names and treated with complete disrespect. I have worked at numerous companies and have found this to be the reality at all of them. Also expect to lose your job multiple times during your apprenticeship, as when the work slows down you will be the first to go. So be prepared to constantly be on EI looking for a job.

      I have lost all faith in WCB, Alberta health care, and the trades. As well as the government of Alberta for allowing these problems to continue for so many years.

      Joining the trades was the biggest mistake of my life, don’t make the same mistake that I did. The trades should be viewed as last resort. Not a first choice. The trades are not a career.

      After 35 years in Alberta, born and raised. I have now moved to bc.
      Thanks WCB.
      Have fun Alberta 😉

  2. These WCB executive salaries are staggering and obscene amounts of money. Put these salaries in perspective with the pay grades of prime ministers, premiers and private sector CEOs, and one can easily begin to see these salaries far exceed what a rational person would consider fair and equitable.

    Developing and strengthening worker-centred policies needs a strong commitment by this government, and these recommendations should not languish on a shelf collecting dust like so many Tory studies/reviews have in the past. The sooner the improvements/recommendations are implemented, the sooner injured workers can begin to truly receive medical justice, long overdue.

  3. Christina Gray is moving in the right direction: toward the left. Her motives are inspiring.

    Kenny is moving in the wrong direction: toward the right. His petulance is galling.

  4. i guess one more spoon of demagogic blah-blah with nothing to come in the end.
    but nevertheless, as usual sounds very good.

    1. Who shit in your cornflakes?
      Got something specific to say? By all means. But if not, best to keep it zipped…you might preserve your remaining shreds credibility for a little longer. Among some inattentive, casual, and infrequent readers, that is. Petulance is not a good look, even on a troll.D

  5. Thanks for your excellent analysis. I finally finished reading all 187 page of the report and it is amazing! I especially enjoyed the section on recommendations for changes to the WCB Board. Although no blame was laid in the report, it was not hard to see where the widespread dysfunction in the organization originated. This Review should be required reading for every agency board in the province. It really does start at the top. I see they have two vacancies on the 10-member Board. Let’s hope the right people are appointed. I hope the others, including the president, are nearing their three-year term review.

    The WCB website describes the government agency as a company. It’s no wonder people are confused about the organization.

    The Panel was brilliant in its solutions – so much commonsense in this report. I believe all 60 recommendations should be implemented promptly. There has been too much mental, emotional, financial, and (and sometimes physical with the ridiculous six-week maximum of physiotherapy) pain inflicted on injured workers and their families.

    It makes me sad that so many former workers were injured, then further hurt by the WCB dysfunction. I wonder if there is anything the NDP government can do to address those wrongs.

  6. Let us never forget: Workers Compensation is a compromise, in which injured workers give up the right to sue their employers for their injuries, in exchange for a no-fault insurance plan which guarantees their income while away from work due to injury or illness sustained on the job. It in fact protects employers as much as workers, since their liability is limited to the premiums they pay. Imagine, if you will, a worker injured on the job who is represented by a deep-pocketed union with a team of heavy-hitting lawyers, who takes their employer to court and wins a ginormous judgement or settlement. Without Workers Comp, employers might have to carry very expensive private-sector liability insurance against such a contingency.

    Employers and their right-wing fellow travelers need to remember that protecting the integrity of the Workers Comp system is just as much in their interests as it is in that of workers.

    1. Yeah, but apparently they get the premium money back if WCB somehow does not spend it. The current system is perfect for the employers: low cost insurance that they don’t even pay, and no liability. I wish I could get car insurance on those terms. (You have to wonder what actuarial principles are used to set the premiums, under the present regime).

      1. I haven’t been following this… are employers getting their full premiums back or just a rebate?

        It would make sense to me for the board to be able to reward employers with lower premiums in the future, but not with direct cash rebates.

    2. WCB is not holding up their side of the agreement. They have found a way to profit off their injured workers. I think what is happening is, they immediately deny any and all injuries. Then force the employee into a complicated appeal process. Only to deny you again. So this is causing repeated ,untreated, unrecognized, progressive injuries to employees. Which in my case has caused me to quit the trade 2 years after receiving my red seal journeyman certification. The money isn’t worth the injuries. I paid a over $3000 last year on chiropractic and physio therapy to try and keep myself able to do the job. But I continued to receive injuries while receiving treatment. So I have now given up. Canada needs to implement private,employee paid, workplace injury insurance. Because WCB is not doing what they were created to do anymore. We have given up our right to sue but have not been given the guaranteed injury compensation we were promised in return…

      It is practically impossible to get a union job in my 13 years of experience. Union jobs account for less than a 1/3 of total trades jobs in Canada. They are never hiring because no one can be fired.

      In my experience, no union means no rights. Because no one is on your side to fight for you. And companies are free to exploit their employees. I have had a company tell us that they legally didn’t have to give breaks in a day. When we were digging trenches in in the sun in +35 Celsius weather. I had a company put me on call for 4 months straight. I had a company Make me pay my tuition for school, when the government already pays tuition for apprentices. So this company was taking money immorally from its employees. I worked for a company that had me work Canada day and didn’t pay me overtime. Companies are also free to lay someone off due to “lack of work”, and hire someone else the very same day.
      So, it is glaringly obvious to me that if you’re not in a union, employees in the trades have no rights.

      WCB is taking money away from the people who desperately need healthcare, so they can pay their board members huge salaries. And in Alberta, hundreds of millions of dollars in “surplus” funds, are being refunded back to companies annually. This money is coming from suppressing or denying valid WCB claims.

      Fixing the problems with WCB, and making all trades companies have mandatory union participation, will improve retention in the trades. And potentially solve Canada’s skilled trades shortage.

      Until I see these changes occur, I will look for work in less back breaking types of employment. And I have now left Alberta. I Have also prepared myself for the event of a class action lawsuit against WCB.

      Signed, Red seal journeyman plumber and a journeyman class B gasfitter.

  7. NEW WCB REVIEW PROVIDES NO NEW HOPE FOR INJURED WORKERS

    – Alberta Ombudsman Gordon Button – former Officer in Charge of Criminal Operations for Alberta.

    – Alberta Ombudsman Peter Hourihan – former Deputy Commissioner of the North West Region (NWR) and Commanding Officer of K Division (Alberta)

    – Alberta Ombudsman Marianne Ryan – former Deputy Commissioner, Commanding Officer of K Division (Alberta)

    In Ombudsman Button’s decision (#05-28441) dated September 7, 2005 Ombudsman Button stated the following quoted from his letter:

    “It is my opinion that by the use of the words “otherwise allowed” Section 46(4) of the ACT allows WCB discretion as to whether to require a written request from the requestor to take forward issues to the DRB, and can decide to obtain a written decision without the specific consent of the requestor.

    Thus, it is my opinion WCB had the legislative authority to put your case before the CSRC without your specific consent. I am also of the opinion in doing this WCB acted in accordance with its articulated processes as evidenced in Ms. Maxwell’s May 29, 2002 letter to you.

    Based on this information I see no evidence of administrative unfairness by WCB in this matter.”

    Ombudsman Hourihan refused to re-review Ombudsman Button’s decision in his decision (#13-103676) dated July 31, 2013, even though it was requested by Justice Minister Jonathan Denis. The request of the Ombudsman by Minister Denis was based on FOIP evidence I provide Minister Denis that showed I never requested a review as was stated in Ms. Maxwell’s May 29, 2002 letter. The FOIP evidence referred to and provided to Minister Denis and subsequently Ombudsman Hourihan is WCB FOIP #2009-P-0008 and WCB FOIP #2009–P- 0037.

    Ombudsman Ryan also refused to re-review Ombudsman Button’s decision (05-28441) of September 7, 2005 in her August 30, 2018 decision (#18-01025) in regards to my latest attempt to right this obvious wrong.

    In a letter dated May 31, 2017 from Brian Roach, Private Secretary and Director, Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta it was recommended that I take my concerns back to the Alberta WCB and/or the Alberta Minister of Labour, the Honourable Christina Grey, whose Ministry holds the responsibility for the Worker’s Compensation Board.

    I took the recommendation and wrote to the Alberta WCB. WCB Customer Service Manager John Higa responded to my letter of August 11, 2017 on August 28, 2017. He stated the following quoted from his letter:

    “You continue to raise concerns that DRDRB should not have conducted a review leading to the DRDRB decision on June 19, 2002. The Office of the Ombudsman on September 7, 2005 had conducted a review on this jurisdictional issue. It was determined that WCB had the legislative authority to put your case before the DRDRB and that it was appropriate for DRDRB to conduct the review. There was no evidence of administrative unfairness found.”

    I wrote to the Honourable Minister Grey in an email dated October 16, 2017 with all of my WCB/FOIP related inquiries. Honourable Minister Grey has yet to formally reply.

    Everyone I have talked with about these WCB/FOIP related issues in the last 13 years since Ombudsman Button’s decision has said that his ruling as it relates to 46(4) of the WCA is illegal as it lets the WCB take a direct interest in a workers claim for benefits.
    There is no hope for workers as long as Ombudsman Button’s decision stands. Hope further diminishes as long as there is no police force in place that investigates the thousands upon thousands of Alberta WCB claims that have flagrant breaches of the law within their decisions. Minister Denis of the previous PC government and Minister Ganley of the current NDP government were both unable to direct me to a policing agency that has jurisdiction over the WCB and the Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA). There is no real oversight and effectively no real Worker’s Compensation for significant permanent injury resulting from workplace accident.

    Therefore it really doesn’t mean much to most injured workers that a recent review of the Alberta WCB was done in much the same way that the WCB review done in 2000 did not matter. The WCB has a legal way around significant injury claims causing permanent disability simply by utilizing Alberta Ombudsman Button’s precedent setting September 7, 2005 decision #05-28441.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.