By Jonathon Brodie

Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) activist crowded Chris Bentley’s office Wednesday, hoping the London West MPP will hear their calls for change when it comes to rights for injured workers.

About 15 protesters waited in Bentley’s office for a call from the MPP who was away in Toronto at a cabinet meeting. He was not told beforehand about the protest.

“We are in an election year and we need to get this message out and make this an election campaign issue,” said Leonard Elliott, president of OPSEU Local 101. “We’re going to put them to the test. We’re going to say ‘you’re going to change this’.”

Taking centre stage at the protest was the issue of deeming, a practice used by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to gauge the rate of compensation it will pay for loss of earnings as a result of workplace injury or illness. The board pays permanently disabled workers 85 per cent of the difference between their earning before the injury and those they’ll earn afterwards if they can’t continue in their previous occupations.

“That’s what you’re expected to feed your family on? That’s unacceptable and so where do they go? They end up on social assistance after that,” Elliott said.

Bentley, a former Ontario Labour Minister, agreed with the activists saying there’s a lot of work to be done regarding the problem.

“It’s an enormously complex issue,” he said, adding Liberal government is one of the only ones trying to fix the problem. “We want to be fair when treating people fairly and equitably.”

Injured workers survive on almost 20 per cent less than they did in 1996  and since the Liberal government took power, workers’ compensation benefits have decreased by 6.8 per cent, according to the OFL.

“The system right now is very adversarial and Ontario workers are suffering out there,” said Wendy Knelson, who had to leave her office administration job after she suffered a repetitive strain injury in her hands, forearms, shoulders and neck from spending long hours on her laptop.

“Workers who are hurt on the job end up losing their financial stability and they lose their physical health. They eventually lose their emotional health and end up in poverty.  The system we have in place wasn’t put there for that.”

Bentley’s office wasn’t the only MPP visited by protesters. Other offices occupied included ones in Ottawa, Mississauga, Scarborough, Beamsville, and Thunder Bay.

Wednesday’s actions follow an eight-day hunger strike last month by a 70-year-old injured worker.