Workers' compensation costs for City of Winnipeg employees doubled over last 5 years
Fire-paramedics, Winnipeg Transit drivers saw biggest increase in time lost in 2024
Workers' compensation costs for emergency responders and bus drivers with the City of Winnipeg have soared in recent years, with more than half of claims made last year related to psychological stress.
Over the last five years, workers' compensation costs for the city have more than doubled from $11.8 million in 2020 to $25.5 million in 2024. That year, those costs rose by $6.1 million — a 31 per cent jump, according to a new report to be presented at the executive policy committee meeting next Tuesday.
"What the Workers Compensation Board claims really reflect is the health of our city staff," Mayor Scott Gillingham told reporters at an unrelated media event on Wednesday.
The city is working with the compensation board, Winnipeg Transit and the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to bring down those costs, he said.
"There has to be this balance between making sure we're doing all we can to get our city staff healthy, rehabilitated where possible, and back into the workforce as quickly as possible," Gillingham said.
The same report noted there were 914 accepted time-loss claims in 2024, an increase of four per cent, while psychological injury claims rose 14 per cent, accounting for 54 per cent of all time lost.
Fire-paramedics and Winnipeg Transit drivers made up the bulk of that increase.
Union leaders representing City of Winnipeg workers called the compensation numbers concerning but unsurprising.
According to a Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union survey of 205 paramedics and dispatchers conducted in early April, 93 per cent of respondents said they had experienced violence on the job, and 71 per cent said they had considered leaving their job in the last year.
The head of the Winnipeg Transit union says it conducted an assessment in December and found 44 drivers were off for mental health injuries.
"And those 44 people alone … resulted in the city losing over 19,000 days of work productivity, and that I think has raised an alarm bell with the city," said Chris Scott, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505.
United Firefighters of Winnipeg president Nick Kasper says staffing ratios haven't kept up with the demand for service.
From 2019 to 2023, structure fires increased by 87 per cent, medical calls went up 23 per cent, and vacant structure fires rose by 244 per cent, Kasper said.
"Simply put, our population has grown, our call volume has skyrocketed," he said.
"The men and women that are riding our fire trucks are being exposed to unsustainable volumes of calls during their shift."
Public works committee chair Coun. Janice Lukes says the nature of the jobs has changed.
"It's just a really strange world out there right now," she said, adding that the change is related to drugs and drug-related psychosis.
A report on reducing workers' compensation costs is expected to be delivered to council later this year.
Replenishing rainy day fund
Workers' compensation claims have been blamed for draining the city's fiscal stabilization fund, also known as the rainy day fund, in recent years.
In a new report, also on the agenda for the executive policy committee meeting next week, the city says it has found money to begin replenishing it, thanks to operational surpluses of $5.4 million from Winnipeg Transit, $1.8 million from animal services, and $3.7 million in leftover capital funding from the provincial government for the Southwest Rapid Transitway and Pembina Highway underpass payment reserve.
The city now expects to have $36.4 million in the fund by the end of the year, nearly double the $18.6 the city had expected earlier this year.
Although Gillingham says the city is still well below the target balance of $85.1 million in the fiscal stabilization reserve, the added funds "moves us significantly in the right direction."
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