TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - April 4, 2011) - Arthurs Hearings on WSIB Funding open in Toronto with presentation by CUPE Leaders presenting their views on reforming Ontario's injured workers compensation (WSIB) funding system in Ontario.

"All Ontario workers deserve protection, not just the 72% of workers currently covered", says Fred Hahn, President of CUPE Ontario.

"Ontario's workers' compensation system has been the victim of a series of ill-considered, politically driven and ideologically motivated experiments over the past 15 years," said Harry Goslin, President of the WSIB's unionized employees in a report prepared by the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU) CUPE Local 1750.

To view CUPE Ontario's submission and a backgrounder, visit www.cupe.on.ca, and click on the box which reads: 'WSIB Funding Review: CUPE Ontario's response'

• "Ontario's workers' compensation system has been the victim of a series of ill-considered, politically driven and ideologically motivated experiments over the past 15 years."
• "The goal of the compensation system must be to ensure that workers who are injured at work or who acquire an occupationally related disease are compensated fairly and provided with appropriate and timely support and services to enable them to achieve their potential as participants in the workforce."
• "We hope that your commission will support some of our common sense suggestions for restoring Ontario's accident compensation system to the best in the country and comparable to the best in the world."
• "The percentage of injured workers in Ontario covered by the Workers' Safety and Insurance Board has declined to the lowest in Canada."
• "We are all in this together. Everyone needs to be covered and everyone has a stake in a healthy and competitive workforce."
• "It is not enough to reform the funding of a 'broken' system. The compensation system itself must be reformed based on the fairness principles first stated by Justice Meredith in 1913. We are demanding compensation coverage for all Ontario workers and fair rates for all employers and employees."
•  "We feel the time, trust and training all must be carefully mixed with public accountability and sensitivity to develop the best accident safety protection for all workers in Ontario."
• "No private insurance plan can ever provide such protection and accountability"
• "When political decisions are made to cut benefits -- as happened in the mid-1990s -- it is not the decision makers who meet face-to-face with the injured workers who are directly affected, it is our members."