Man, I am having a bad hair day! Reading thru stupid workers compensation case files. Here’s one. The worker “suffered” (and I purposely put that word in quotes) a soft tissue injury to her right foot in May 2009. And get this. The diagnosis is “by exclusion”. Meaning, no fracture, no other obvious reason for any disability of the foot, so the doctors decide it is a “soft-tissue” injury. That’s like a muscle strain folks. And now the worker has developed a “chronic pain disorder” which will end up getting her a permanent impairment pension award, on top of the loss of earnings benefits she has been collecting while she attends college, studying to become an administrative assistant. Oh yeah. And the tuition and books and parking and a rolling bag carrier to carry those heavy books, are all paid for by Ontario’s workers compensation board (WSIB). All costs of this claim end up on the employer’s account and they are penalized because their costs are now exceeding the industry average. So next time you read about some mafia goings on in Montreal re: corrupt construction industry, remind yourself that corruption exists in just about every agency of government. And unlike the illegal shit going on it Quebec, most of it is condoned by stupid Claims Managers at agencies like WSIB who are overpaid, bungling bureaucrats that just don’t get it. So don’t bitch about our manufacturing jobs disappearing to China and India. Who in their right mind would open any kind of business in Ontario given the ridiculous workers’ compensation law and policy that lets bullshit artists like this worker get away with ankle sprain and stretch it into three years of loss of earnings, a pension for life and retraining at one of our fine colleges? Hey employers, shut your doors and move your operations offshore. This province is headed for a soup-line future.
And that, my friends, is my rant of the day.
