Frustration over GE coalition is justified

As researchers with the GE study we would like to add our observations of the coalition leadership that created intolerable frustrations for Roger Fowler and co-workers.

Based on our observations, Roger Fowler is justified in publicly expressing his frustrations with the coalition leadership.

It should be noted that the current disunity was caused directly by the actions of the coalition leaders; Roger and his colleagues were excluded from active participation and their work devalued -- clear and simple.

Fowler was part of a group that worked diligently for the last year on the GE risk exposure study, meeting twice a week to collect information and document the experiences of other workers. We are told that the report represents a major breakthrough towards having GE workers’ claims accepted.

Unfortunately, that is not how the report was received by the coalition leadership who told the workers they would no longer attend meetings with the minister. At the next schedued meeting with Minister Flynn, attended by three self-appointed individuals with no connection to GE, co-chairwoman Heather Brooks-Hill told the minister that “there was nothing new” in the report and that “it was not needed” to justify presumptive entitlement. This is recorded in the coalition minutes.

On several occasions we witnessed Brooks-Hill berate workers for raising questions she didn’t want to entertain with no room for discussion or other points of view. At one meeting it was suggested that we contact the political opposition. In response, Brooks-Hill shouted that we could not do this. When asked “why?” she said “Because I am a Liberal,” leaving many to wonder if the coalition was a creature of the Liberal Party.

In July, the coalition advertised a public meeting to discuss an “impending settlement” of GE compensation claims – yet there was no such settlement. The meeting was a ruse to gain support for their pet project: presumptive entitlement.

Without addressing many unanswered questions, the meeting ’s chair asked: “Can we have a show of hands for those in favour of presumptive entitlement?” Predictably, everyone raised their hands. Who wouldn’t? But, that’s not a mandate!

Opposing “presumptive entitlement” is like opposing “motherhood,” but the devil is in the details. The firefighters fought for more than 20 years to obtain recognition of 16 cancers after lengthy consultations and research which began in 1997 and finally concluded in 2017.

The minister favours Schedule 3 rebuttable presumption. But questions remain: which cancers would and would not be covered, would they be phased in over time, what cancers might be left out, what thresholds would be required, what non-work factors used for rebuttal, and how much time for the legal process? Without answers to these questions, it is difficult for Roger and the Advisory Committee to give their unconditional endorsement for presumptive entitlement. For the coalition to raise hopes of presumptive entitlement without full and open discussion of such questions is to set an already wounded community up for further disappointment and despair.

And for the coalition leadership who lack expertise in occupational health and compensation law to presume to “negotiate” on behalf of GE workers without being elected and in such a complex context is the height of arrogance and may ultimately do disservice to these workers.