Patrick Flannery
Compensation boards creating skilled trades shortage
Our love for worker’s compensation boards continues to overflow…
I am a red seal plumber and gasfitter, and I refuse to work in my trades anymore because WCB denies all of my workplace injuries. I have made 9 claims and been denied coverage 9 times. If there is a trades shortage, then I believe it is caused by the WCB. If we are not permitted to recover from workplace injuries, then journeymen will quit their trade at an early age. Just as I have done at the age of 35. 10 years of constant agony was finally enough for me. I will not return to the trades until I see a big change in wcb’s policy. I am now back at school training towards a sustainable career.
-Thanks WCB. – The trades deserve what they get!
– Joe
Advertisement
Print this page
Joe I have one thing to say to you ” Suck it up Buttercup”. We have had dealing with WSIB and found them to be quite fair. We are not thrilled with the paper work but find that they worked with us and we were thankful they we there for our employees. Joe you say 9 claims filed in 10 years; I think you did the industry a favour to seek work outside the trade. I have been involved in construction 50 years and yes it is hard on the body, but very rewarding to help homeowners and business owners fulfill their dreams or just peace of mind of a job done well. The shortage in the trades is not anything we can blame on any agency but on society. We have raised a soft generation.
Randy, I have one thing to say to you. “Ok Boomer”.
So I turns out that my mri revealed that I have a collapsed L5-S1 disc in my back. At one point I had a herniated or ruptured disc and I was put back to work without any treatment. I continued to work with this for over a decade. Until the disc was completely gone. So I did suck it up for many years, until the pain became too great to tolerate.
Now that I finally have the proof of my injury, I will continue to fight WCB for as long as it takes. Because WCB’s neglect is the cause of my long term disability. If they had only allowed me to recover when the injury first occurred, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Randy Klein is the problem with the trades, these boomers seem to think that things work the same in 2021 as they did in 1970 lol! WCB was dismantled in in the early 90’s then in 2001-2002 they made it even harder to appeal a WCB claim. WCB and the trades are not what they used to be.
Now when journeymen are injured at work they will be more likely to quit their trade, than to recover and return to work. No wonder there is a skilled trades shortage, it is very easy to see why if you do some research.
Canada’s answer to the skilled trades shortage is to not allow injured workers to recover, instead they will replace them with uninformed young people and immigrants.
The dismantling of our WCB system is obviously the cause of the skilled trades shortage. Not stigma, young people are now too smart to sacrifice their lives to the trades.
The trades did this to themselves and they will get what they deserve.
Signed, Joe Plumber
(Red seal journeyman plumber and journeyman class b gasfitter)