WSIB fixes troubled injured worker re-training program

Posted on July 2, 2010 in Debates, Social Security Debates

Source: — Authors:

TheStar.com – News/imvestigations – Provincial safety board plans more cost-effective system to aid those injured on job
Published On Fri Jul 02 2010.   David Bruser Staff Reporter

A wasteful $150 million worker retraining program has been scrapped and replaced by a streamlined system provincial officials say will protect vulnerable workers and save money.

A Toronto Star investigation in early 2009 showed the costly provincial Labour Market Re-Entry program, which had been outsourced to the private sector, failed to lead nearly half of its participants to jobs.

The Star found injured workers were being sent to for-profit schools charging high tuitions so they could prepare for menial jobs as cashiers and attendants.

One worker, Nelson Fachola, was sent to a school that charged $33,000 – considerably more than tuition for a four-year undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto – so that he would find work doing data entry and stocking shelves for $11 an hour. He did not.

The Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) aims to roll out the new program by the end of the year.

“This is good news. The WSIB was paying a lot of money for nothing,” said Gladys Canelas, another injured worker caught up in the broken system.

“We’re delighted with the work of the Star,” said Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL). “It will save the workers compensation system a fortune and it will lead to happier workers because they won’t be feeling that the system screwed them over.”

Since 1998, the WSIB had outsourced the program to claims management firms such as Crawford Healthcare Management and Sibley & Associates. These firms were supposed to assess the worker’s abilities, decide on a suitable job and the training needed to get that job. A typical program lasted 20 months and the firms periodically met with the worker to monitor progress while billing the workplace insurance system $80 to $90 an hour for the monitoring service.

The new program, re-branded the Work Re-integration Program and set to begin by end of year, will put WSIB managers back in charge of injured workers’ rehabilitation, give workers more say in their re-training plans, make greater use of Ontario’s public education system for the re-training, and aim to give workers “marketable skills and valid credentials.”

“You’re not going to be getting $33,000 worth of training to make someone a customer service rep or a clerk in a grocery store,” said Ryan of the OFL. “Clearly you can see there’s going to be massive savings. The training will go back to the community colleges and universities.”

WSIB executive Judy Geary, who has spent the last 18 months studying problems and planning the program overhaul, said the focus is primarily on improving injured workers’ futures, though she expects “modest savings.”

As the provincial agency is funded by employer premiums, the cost of an injured worker’s retraining affects the bottom line of the employer where he or she was hurt. The program sees about 5,000 new injured workers each year.

“We’re also expecting that fewer injured workers will have to be searching for work in the open market because we’re going to be holding employers up to their responsibilities to accommodate (their) injured workers,” Geary said.

The Star investigation also featured the saga of Carlos Aviles, who maimed his hand fixing a machine for his boss. The WSIB’s privately run program decided Aviles would need months of costly but basic math and language training, even though he already had an Ontario high school diploma.

At a private learning centre where tuition cost as much per year as Canada’s top law school, Aviles was to prepare for life as a clerk earning near minimum wage. “It was a waste of time,” Aviles said. “So much money wasted. It’s all garbage. The training was inadequate. This is not real school. It’s for kids. (But) I have to go there.”

While the WSIB will rely more on public schools for re-training, registered private, for-profit schools and other businesses will get some work but under stricter quality and cost controls.

Several injured workers had told the Star they had no choice about what school they attended and very little input into study plans, and that they were instructed to do as they were told or lose their WSIB benefits.

The WSIB also plans to set up an “independent” complaint system so workers can freely raise concerns about their re-training.

Under the outgoing system, the claims management firms, in addition to charging the WSIB the hourly monitoring fee once or several times a month, often charged another $30 to $45 an hour just to travel to meet with the student.

The Star article prompted one provincial leader to call for an audit while another said the program should be scrapped immediately.

Steve Mahoney, the head of the WSIB – a massive, multi-billion dollar arm of the government that insures two-thirds of all workplaces in Ontario – told the Star at the time that he was considering moving management of the retraining program back in-house.

An audit was commissioned and the findings, released 10 months after the Star’s investigation, called for significant change.

“Retraining programs over the past decade have not produced desired results,” the WSIB recently told the OFL as part of a presentation on the changes. “Employment rates are low, costs are rising, and workers and employers have expressed ongoing dissatisfaction.”

The WSIB presentation to the OFL also said the new program aims to remove the “strong profit motivation that is influencing current performance” and shorten the length of the average re-training program.

“Increased use of the public adult education system will provide greater assurance of sound curriculum, qualified instructors and compliance with standards,” the WSIB told the OFL. “It will concurrently reduce the stigma experienced by injured workers and provide them with credible credentials.”

Crawford Healthcare Management executive Gary Gardner said he is disappointed to lose the WSIB’s business and disagreed with any characterization of his firm as being an expensive and ineffective manager of re-training. Gardner added that his firm is looking forward to possibly bidding on the components of the new program still open to the private sector.

Sibley & Associates and another re-training management company, NRCS Inc., did not return calls from the Star.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/workplacesafety/wsib/article/831165–wsib-fixes-troubled-injured-worker-re-training-program  >

Tags: ,

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Debates, Social Security Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “WSIB fixes troubled injured worker re-training program”

  1. does this happen to every WSIB return to work, injured person or are there some other sides to the story. Just about to have my first App. with someone about retraining. what should I do?

  2. Linda says:

    I am sorry and saden at the same to see ones disabiity and barrier to employment has been has been exploited.
    I believe in abilities and not disabilities. – believe in helping one when fallen or down believe in helping to make a difference.
    There are many schools and private career colleges that will test and measure your capabiliites and create a vison for you for your careerpath with the passion to help you succeed.
    Please I would be more than happy to pass a contact to you
    Just email me
    Careerpath33@hotmail.com
    LLO

  3. Ken Henshaw says:

    W===What
    S—Silly
    I—Ignorant
    B—Bastards
    I have paid into WSIB Optional Insurance for many years I am self employed I injured myself in 2004 they say I am to old to collect Optional Insurance are you saying that I have been paying into the fund for the last 13 years and I had no insurance WSIB response I guess so!
    Regards
    Ken Henshaw

  4. Dynkeld says:

    Thanks a ton for that facts, are actually looking a number of days and nights for this.

  5. bill berglund says:

    i am an injured worker in Thunder Bay. I also am in the LMR program I attend a for profit school where most of the time I am being taught by a student teacher . i am taking courses from adult ed which anyone off the street can attend for 90 dollars .the price stated on my LMR plan to attend this school is 22000 dollars this is for upgrading my college course is only 4100 my plan states it is 8000 who is lining their pockets.i have no say in my training asia was cohersed into signing this in hindsight I wouldn’t have signed anything. When my training is done the benefits stop as a worker who had a 6 figure income I will be lucky to earn 30000 thousand a year and if I dont do what im told they will cut me off who watches these people in the end its the workers who gets screwed.

  6. Lana says:

    I went throught the same thing. I started with a computer program and then went to Humber College to take a upgrading program. I found it to difficult to travel from Milton to Toronto so we moved to Mississaug and I was accepted to Sheridan College. I enrolled in a course called Court and Tribunal Agent program (two years)and graduated in 2006. It took me six months to find a job in a collection agency as a collector (not even in my field) of course. In February 2007 I accepted a position at another collection agency in their legal department. I stayed there until September 2008 and then I lost my job when they downsized. I have had no luck since. I don’t have enough experience and no multi language skills. My rent jumped $12/mo last year and I got a whopping $1 per two weeks from WSIB. Yup that really helped. To top it off I have to keep filing with WSIB nurse case manager to keep my meds going.

|

Leave a Reply