DYING FOR A LIVING

Activists join forces in fight to win justice for workers hurt or killed by their job

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Activist Janice Martell with her dad Jim Hobbs

THERE'S NO VACCINE FOR OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE. It’s a cruel reality that prompted the creation of the Occupational Disease Reform Alliance (ODRA). The alliance is the latest concentrated push by Ontario workers to get fair treatment from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) system.

The ODRA wants the WSIB to formally recognize occupational disease and make the compensation claims process easier and faster to navigate, while being fairer to workers.

$3 billion better spent on workers

The October launch of the ODRA comes on the heels of the province’s anouncement proposing new legislation that, if passed, could return nearly $3 billion from the WSIB’s reserve funds to employers.

Sue James chairs the alliance. She believes the $3 billion would be better spent on sick and dying workers and in settling outstanding compensation claims, some of which have been languishing in limbo for decades.

In some cases, workers have died before their claim was reviewed.

“Our alliance of workers, advocates and families has come together to focus a spotlight on the epidemic of occupational disease in our communities across Ontario and the absolute failure of our government and the WSIB to address this effectively,” James said during the online launch of the ODRA.

Occupational disease clusters

The members of the ODRA include widows, workers and community groups advocating for affected workers in nine specific “occupational disease clusters” connected to specific workplaces including:

  • miners who inhaled deadly McIntyre Powder at many mines across northern Ontario for 37 years

  • construction workers who built a boiler at the Weyerhaeuser pulp and paper mill in Dryden in the early 2000s

  • steel mill workers in Sault Ste. Marie;

  • workers from Chemical Valley in Sarnia

  • workers at General Electric in Peterborough

  • rubber workers from Kitchener-Waterloo, and

  • workers from Pebra/Ventra Plastics in Peterborough.

“We need to have reform for these people that would enhance and truly reflect the needs and outcomes of workers and families through a fair, just and timely process,” James said.

Activist efforts win workers millions

Janice Martell, a Sudbury-based worker advocate, said the coming together of workers, their families and advocates to call for change has been a “powerful” experience.

“I felt this isn’t just one daughter of one miner in Northern Ontario standing on a soapbox,” Martell said in an interview.

“This is all of these workers and widows, and this is just a start.”

Martell began the McIntyre Powder Project in 2014 after her miner father, Jim Hobbs, developed Parkinson’s after years of following employer instructions to inhale finely ground toxic aluminum dust as a way to prevent disease.

Since she began advocating on behalf of Northern Ontario miners, Martell conservatively estimates they’ve collectively received about $6.4 million in compensation, with another $600,000 in ongoing benefits annually awarded to widows and family members.

But for many, the compensation is bittersweet, Martell said.

Receiving compensation now didn’t save their loved one from dying of occupational disease, or make their lives easier while living through the illness, she noted.

And that, she said, is why the work of the alliance is important.

“We’re trying to carve that path for the next ones, so that you don’t have widows who have to wait for years and decades to get justice, or never get justice, or die.”

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