Still no deal on the table for WSIB employees despite 5 weeks of picketing

Five weeks into negotiations between the WSIB and its employees, workers in Waterloo region are still picketing without any idea of when an agreement will be reached. 

More than 100 employees of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in Waterloo region picketed outside of Waterloo city hall on Wednesday.

"We've been hoping for the past five weeks. We ask, we send petitions, we send letters, we contact MPs," Regan D'Agostino, the picket captain for WSIB employees in Waterloo, told CBC News. "It seems to be falling on deaf ears."

The strike action began on May 22, after mediated bargaining talks between the WSIB and the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU), the union that represents WSIB employees, broke down.

WSIB employees have been asking their employer for a "reasonable collective agreement that recognizes [the employees'] value to the organization as well as the real health risks that are associated with increased workloads that have been compounding for years," D'Agostino said.

WSIB employees 'shut out' from working

In the most recent round of collective bargaining, D'Agostino said that 96 per cent of union members voted in favour of a strike. Union members initially planned on doing "rotating strikes" so they could continue to serve Ontarians. However, once the strike action commenced, they were prevented from going back to work.

"[The WSIB] shut us out of our systems on day one," she said. "For whatever reason, this time they didn't trust us to remain on the job while the details were worked out, as we've done for 110 years."

Aaron Lazarus, vice president of communications at the WSIB, told CBC News in a phone interview that it was the OCEU that announced a "full withdrawal of service" first.

"All of [the union] members did not come to work on May 22," Lazarus explained. "As a result of them taking that strike action, we had to remove access to our systems in order to maintain the integrity of our systems and our organization." 

Offer not enough

In a news release on June 9, the WSIB stated that with the most recent inflation rate of 1.7 per cent, the WSIB's proposal included "above inflation wage increases over the next three years." 

Lazarus doubles down on this, saying that the WSIB's latest offer included "above inflation wage increases that would take [the WSIB] from having 60 per cent of people making $100,000 or more a year, to having 75 per cent of unionized employees make over $100,000 a year."

However, D'Agostino said the offer was "still behind significantly," citing Bill 124 as a major factor behind the lag in wage increases. 

Bill 124 was passed in 2019. It capped salary increases for broader public sector workers at one per cent a year for three years, but in 2022, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled it unconstitutional. In 2024, the Ontario government repealed the legislation. 

Lazarus explains that what the WSIB brought to the table is a "fair offer."

"There is such a gap in terms of the realistic or unrealistic expectations that are on the table right now," he said. "I think that if people look at the fairness of saying 75 per cent of our union members are going to be earning $100,000 or more and come back to the table with that kind of fairness and expectation in mind, then we should be able to get a deal." 

Ontarians feeling the effects

D'Agostino said that with the strike now in its fifth week, Ontarians are the ones suffering from the delays in services. She says she herself has seen this impact in person. 

She got a knock on her door on Friday from a landlord whose tenant suffered a significant injury on May 28. 

She said the man had called the WSIB for weeks, but nobody picked up. When someone finally answered the phone, the injured caller was told his claim was approved and that he would be receiving payment. However, the person who picked up would not give their name, and refused to give any contact information. 

D'Agostino said what WSIB employees like her do goes beyond just that.

"This gentleman needs services," she said. "He needs a nurse, he needs a case manager, not somebody behind a phone dismissing him."

Lazarus counters that the WSIB is providing these much-needed services. He explains that the WSIB is "not pausing on health care that people need right now."

The WSIB is also providing income replacement for people if they're hurt or injured at work, and not able to return to work.

But D'Agostino does not see this realistically happening. She says the WSIB is "just being very careful and very specific about the verbiage they use."

"The WSIB maintains that services are running. Again, I ask, how is that possible when 3,600 of your staff are not there?" she said. "You cannot AI a case management job. That is a personal job that we all take very seriously."

Lazarus told CBC News that the WSIB is not using AI on case management. He explains that the remaining WSIB employees – those who are not unionized – are the ones who are doing the work. He adds that the WSIB remains functional with more than a third of their total employees working at the moment. 

Going back to the table

Both the WSIB and the OCEU have expressed that the other side is unwilling to come to a fair compromise. 

Lazarus said the WSIB has always been ready to talk at the table, passing the ball to the OCEU's leadership.

"I think it's incumbent on the union leadership to come back to the table with fair and realistic expectations so that we can get a tentative agreement that their members can vote on so that they can return to work themselves," he said.

"We are people helping people. That's what our organization is about. We have excellent people who do that work and we want them back doing it as quickly as possible."

D'Agostino expressed the same desire – to go back to work and serve Ontarians. She says union members have been wanting to go back to work since the strike action began in May. 

"We really need the public's support. We're injured workers too," D'Agostino said. 

"We're everybody, right? We're real people and we're being ignored."