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Thank you for taking the time to
explore the Office of the Worker Adviser (OWA) Website. We
hope you will find it helpful.
With 15 offices throughout Ontario,
the OWA has more than 20 years experience advising and advocating
for injured workers; as do many of our staff and managers,
individually.
Each year we secure decisions on nearly 5,000 issues related
to the appeals of injured workers. This makes us the largest
single organization in Canada handling workplace insurance
appeals.
Since our creation in 1985, we have
had more injured workers and survivors requesting our help
than we've had the capacity to assist. As a result, we must
evaluate the likelihood of success in every case that comes
to us. This is called a case review. Under the current Law
and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) policies,
we sometimes have to tell an injured worker that his/her appeal
does not have a reasonable chance of success. Our evaluation
of case files is based on our experience. This does not mean
that the cases in which we have chosen not to represent are
not deserving, but we must consider our chances of success
based on a review of the evidence available to support the
case in hand.
In situations where we find it necessary
to reject an appeal, OWA staff advise the worker, in writing,
what evidence is required to pursue the case. More than 25
percent of people told they do not have a case eventually
come back to us with the additional evidence we advised them
to secure. We are then in a better position to help them.
Although we don't always win the thousands of cases we appeal
each year, our success rate is good. In the last year alone,
56 percent of our cases before the Appeals Resolution Officer
level at WSIB, and 73 percent of our cases before the Workplace
Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT) were allowed
in full or in part. You may wish to review some of the interesting
decisions we have won, by selecting Summaries
of WSIAT Decisions Involving OWA.
With the aid of this website as a resource, our hope is that
some injured workers will be able to appeal the less complex
issues on their own. Where possible, we want to give injured
workers the tools to help themselves. A first step for someone
wanting to dispute a WSIB decision would be to consult Fact
Sheet 5, called Your
Claim File and How to Get It. Once you receive your
WSIB claim file, you may wish to refer to our Glossary
of Terms which explains some of the language used
in workplace insurance matters.
We have over 40 Fact Sheets
outlining some of the various aspects of workplace insurance.
These are written in easy to understand plain language. There
are also two Workers'
Information Kits that provide more detailed information.
The Appeal Kit
provides tips on how to prepare your case and write a submission.
It also explains appeal deadlines and how to meet them. The
Health Care Kit
explains how to get payments for medications, assistive devices,
and health care services originally denied by WSIB.
You can print any of the OWA Fact
Sheets and Workers' Kits in either printer friendly HTML or
Adobe PDF format. Just go to the Document
Library/Print Centre and select the topic of your
choice.
The Website's right navigation column has some quick and easy
links to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and
the WSIB Operational Policy Manual. Our Helpful
Links page provides access to Workers' Compensation
Boards and Worker Adviser Offices across Canada. Also listed
are many other organizations that may be of interest to injured
workers and their survivors.
I encourage you to add the OWA
Website to your list of Favourites.
If you care to share your comments or ask any questions, please
feel free to e-mail us. We always welcome your Feedback.
For a complete list of OWA offices nearest you, just visit
Contact Us.
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Jorma Halonen, Director
Office of the Worker Adviser
at the United Steelworkers' Memorial in Larry Sefton Park
Toronto, Ontario
Dedicated to Workers Who Died on the Job
About
Jorma Halonen
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