Page 4

In an effort at self aggrandisement and to make themselves seem more vital to the public, the Workplace Safety division of the Department of Labour for the Province of Nova Scotia has gone so far as to expending thousands of public dollars for the production of television “public service ads” to tell their story. The underlying reason behind these and other similar PSA’s is their feeble attempt to mitigate critical complaints that have embarrassed them by showing them in their true colours.

One particularly maudlin piece recounts the death of a young man who was killed as the result of what can only be termed employer negligence. This sickening example of crass cynicism utilizes the young man’s family in manner that can only be termed exploitive. No mention is ever made that this young man might be alive if, perhaps, there had been someone there to monitor his workplace and dictate safe work practices.

There wasn’t anyone on that job site to police and make safety a priority … thus proactively circumventing a needless and preventable death. Workers in Nova Scotia are maimed or killed on a regular basis and the best the public can ever expect from a toothless (or useless) Department of Labour is a cursory investigation of the circumstances, after the fact, and the hollow sympathies of the officials who should have been able to prevent such happenings, if they were really doing their job. Unfortunately, there is no political will to actually enforce and test those laws that are already on the books.

It is far more important to create the perception that the public is getting value for the millions it is forced to donate to the various organizations who profess to be concerned about workplace safety and injured workers.

I mentioned earlier how the proliferation of the internet has been making it more difficult for the WCB and governments, in general, to continue to keep its misdeeds and transgressions, especially as they apply toward injured and abused workers, out of the public eye. In Canada, the politicians’ old tricks of “divide and conquer” are meeting their match as Canadians are given the opportunities to compare notes and situations.

The internet has been a boon to those injured and abused workers who have been denied claims as the result of unjust and, sometimes illegal, practices that, hitherto, were known only to them. Injured workers now are banding together and learning from their peers how to put up a fairer fight against the injustices they have had to endure from the WCB and governments who back it.

For those who would maintain that most injured workers are after “something for nothing” or “scamming” the WCB, I would suggest they look closer to determine who is really scamming whom.

Who stands to make the most money? I can assure, in my experience it is not the much maligned injured worker who profits from his injuries. The real profiteers are the lawyers, the doctors and specialists, the psychologists, the massage therapists, the occupational therapists, and others who have been blessed with a never-ending stream of “clients” who provide them all with very good ( professional ) incomes … as long as the claimants’ benefits can be denied … or delayed