First-ever WSIB strike affects hundreds of employees in northern Ont.

Hundreds of WSIB workers in northern Ont. joined a province-wide strike Friday, for the first time in the organization's history.

More than 1,000 employees in northern Ontario responsible for helping injured workers were on the picket lines Friday.

Workers walked off the job Thursday following months of stalled contract negotiations with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). It’s the first strike in the organization’s 100-year history.

Emotions were running high at the intersection of Lakeshore Drive and Judge Avenue as about 25 WSIB workers walked the picket line.

They were joined by workers in nearly a dozen cities across the province, including Timmins, Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay.

“We have a major crisis in our workload at WSIB and we need the resources to do our jobs better,” said April Leblanc, the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU) vice-president of regions.

The union represents 3,600 workers across the province who have been without a contract since the end of April. Members voted 96 per cent in favour of strike action.

The WSIB provides wage-loss benefits, medical coverage and support to help people return to the job after a workplace injury or illness.

Wages, benefits and workload are the key issues behind the work stoppage.

“The burnout, the depression, the anxiety and the stress are getting very high,” Leblanc said.

“People are doing the work of two to three people.”

The union said WSIB offered wage increases totaling 4.5 per cent over three years.

But union officials said that pay needs to catch up with inflation, citing worker’s wages “are 5.25 per cent behind inflation since 2020” and that offering them less is “not going to cut it.”

The agency said Thursday the union has yet to respond to its latest offer, which it said includes a “wage increase above inflation.”

“That’s an initial offer that’s on the table, and what happens usually is if you disagree with somebody, you talk to them about it,” WSIB spokesperson Aaron Lazarus told CTV News on Thursday.

“We’re hoping … the executive of the union will come back and have a counteroffer … They left the table on Monday. They didn’t respond to anything and they haven’t spoken to us since.”

Lazarus also accuses the union of putting executives first in contract talks.

“When they were at the table, they were mostly interested in talking about themselves,” he said.

“They want paid leave for six union executives and they said they won’t talk about the 3,000 members and their needs until they resolve that issue for themselves.”

For its part, the union said it plans to remain on strike until WSIB comes to the table with a “fair” offer.

‘We love the job’

“We love the job that we do. We just want the resources to be able to serve these people to the level that they deserve,” Leblanc said.

WSIB claims 60 per cent of unionized staff earn more than $100,000 per year. It also said 100 net new case managers have been added since 2023, an increase of five per cent.

Furthermore, caseloads for physical injury claims are down 60 per cent since 2021.

The WSIB also said it will continue to process claims and pay income support during the strike, with automated systems covering most of the cases.

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New claims will be prioritized based on urgency and officials said “wait times are likely to be higher than usual,” particularly for non-urgent matters.

The WSIB serves more than 5.3 million people in more than 300,000 Ontario workplaces.

During the job action, the WSIB says people can still report injuries, access claims, and submit documents online.