WSIB had flagged rubber cases as disease cluster

Board saw sector as a special case long before review of rejected claims was ordered

KITCHENER — Long before it publicly acknowledged rubber workers’ compensation claims needed a second look, Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board was internally flagging the sector as a cluster of occupational disease.

Emails released through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show the board considered rubber workers as one of five specialty cases — along with firefighters, herbicide sprayers, miners exposed to McIntyre Powder, and General Electric workers.

That might surprise the hundreds of former rubber workers whose compensation claims were rejected by the WSIB between 2002 and 2017. All but 15 per cent of claims made in that period for cancer and other work-related diseases were unsuccessful.

“I saw that, and went, ‘What the hell?’” said Janice Martell, the daughter of a northern Ontario miner who filed the FOI request after spending years documenting that sector’s health issues.

The recently-released emails include an exchange in September 2017 between a senior WSIB manager and Dr. Aaron Thompson, an occupational medicine specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. In it, Dr. Thompson identified rubber claims as among those WSIB staff should be watching for.

The internal documents suggest the WSIB was taking note of rubber workers’ claims long before the board announced in December 2018 it would review the roughly 85 per cent of claims from the sector that it

had previously denied.

That announcement, from WSIB chair Elizabeth Witmer, came after a series of stories by the Record exposing the toxic legacy of Kitchener’s rubber industry.

Martell said the release of the documents raises troubling questions about why some sectors that are identified as clusters of work-related disease still have such a hard time getting compensation.

“I’m very concerned about the WSIB and their ability to handle occupational disease claims in a way that is fair,” Martell said. “It seems to be only when the media gets ahold of something or an advocacy group starts pushing, that this stops being a hidden problem.”

Only one of the five sectors flagged as a cluster by the WSIB has special status when it comes to compensation for work-related disease.

In 2007, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act was amended to give “statutory presumption” to firefighters seeking compensation for heart injuries and certain cancers.

That meant firefighters no longer had to prove those illnesses were work related — a benefit not extended to the workers in the other specialty cases.

The WSIB said it lumps some types of claims into “clusters” because they often share a similar exposure profile. They say that allows the board to use the same experts to review those claims, and helps avoid duplication.

It’s expected the recently-announced review of more than 300 claims from rubber workers in Waterloo Region will take about a year — and some cases stand a good chance of being overturned.

The board points out it’s been involved in rubber workers’ claims for years, taking part in a 2002 intake clinic in Kitchener held by the United Steel Workers union. It said will continue to “look at each claim based on its own merits and gather relevant information to make our decision.”

“In making decisions on these claims, any new information that had not previously been submitted, as well as any other relevant information that surfaces, will be considered,” WSIB spokesperson Christine Arnott said in a statement.

“We are also continuing to register and adjudicate any new claims brought to our attention.”

Martell said she filed her FOI request to understand how the WSIB assesses claims for occupational disease. It was prompted by a now-overturned board policy that stated miners’ neurological disorders could not be blamed on their exposure to aluminum dust, also known as McIntyre Powder.

She wanted to know how seriously the board took claims for occupational disease, and was surprised by what she learned.

“Obviously, they’re seeing enough of them. And yet nothing happens until the media brings these stories out,” she said. “You almost have to shame them into action.”