Life isn’t easy after a workplace injury — but employers can help
A work injury didn’t mean a lifetime of poverty for Steve Mantis.
After losing his arm while working in 1978, Mantis was able to seek support and start his own business.
Unfortunately for others injured on the job this is not always the case. After his injury, Mantis helped start an injured workers support group in Thunder Bay, Ont., in 1984.
“What we saw in our peer support group was lots of people who were losing most everything — families, homes, self-respect and dignity — and ending up in poverty,” he said.
The poverty isn’t just anecdotal from a small group of workers in Northern Ontario. Many studies show the lasting and life altering impact a work injury can have on finances.
“It’s a pretty bleak picture,” said Bonita Heath, a PhD student in critical disability studies at York University in Toronto.
Heath’s research includes a recent survey of almost 300 injured workers which revealed 87 per cent of those injured in a workplace accident had permanent, full-time jobs and were earning a living wage prior to their accidents. Post-injury, only nine per cent of those surveyed were working full-time and 57 per cent reported they were not working.
“What struck me was that we’re taking people who have an attachment to the labour force and turning them into poor people,” she said.
Among those who were home owners before their injuries, 18 per cent said they sold their properties and started renting, 20 per cent said they sold their homes to buy a less expensive one and 17 per cent reported moving into subsidized housing.
“A workplace injury can be devastating on many levels and we’re not very good at getting people back to work,” said Heath.
Another study, Poverty Status of Injured Workers with Permanent Impairments: Poverty and Health Relationship, presented at the Research Action Alliance on the Consequences of Work Injury (RAACWI) Symposium in November 2011 showed many injured workers live below the poverty line no matter what method of measuring poverty is used.
The study found that, based on before tax income, 17.3 per cent of injured workers lived below the poverty line when the low income cut off (LICO) method of measuring poverty was used and 25.8 per cent when the low income measure method was used.
When the market basket measure method was used, 11.7 per cent were considered to be in poverty.
“The consequences of an individual living in poverty mean that their whole family is living in poverty, because poverty is estimated based on family income,” said Peri Ballantyne, a professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and one of the researchers involved in the study. “The consequences of poverty on people is really dire, it’s bad for their health, it’s bad for their opportunities of all kinds.”
There should be policies in the workers’ compensation boards of every jurisdiction that people should not, as the result of an accident that was no fault of their own, be allowed to live in squalor, said Ballantyne.
Ballantyne believes workers’ compensation boards should be measuring peoples’ economic security and the gap between their pre- and post-accident incomes.
“In my opinion there should be an ombudsperson who makes an issue out of following those people who fall below their previous standard of living,” she said.
When Ballantyne has done qualitative research on work injury, she said workers have reported they face discrimination when looking for a new job post-injury. During the hiring process workers have to declare they are a person who has had a workers’ compensation claim, she said.
“And once they do that, employers discriminate against them in terms of hiring because employers are worried about getting workers that are going to have problems later.”
Employers should look at innovative ways to accommodate employees. Even with a prosthetic arm, Mantis finds a way to do physically labourious work at his company.
“Accommodating my disability is not a big deal if I have some control over the process,” said Mantis.
Employers who make the time to sit down with injured employees and talk about how the work should be divided up will find injured workers can successfully reintegrate into the workplace, he said.
Because Mantis is missing his left arm, he can’t do things like bang on the rafters of a house to get a roofing project done. But he’s very capable of doing activities that don’t involve reaching, like nailing things down, he said.
“We organize our work quite effectively,” he said.
After losing his arm while working in 1978, Mantis was able to seek support and start his own business.
Unfortunately for others injured on the job this is not always the case. After his injury, Mantis helped start an injured workers support group in Thunder Bay, Ont., in 1984.
“What we saw in our peer support group was lots of people who were losing most everything — families, homes, self-respect and dignity — and ending up in poverty,” he said.
The poverty isn’t just anecdotal from a small group of workers in Northern Ontario. Many studies show the lasting and life altering impact a work injury can have on finances.
“It’s a pretty bleak picture,” said Bonita Heath, a PhD student in critical disability studies at York University in Toronto.
Heath’s research includes a recent survey of almost 300 injured workers which revealed 87 per cent of those injured in a workplace accident had permanent, full-time jobs and were earning a living wage prior to their accidents. Post-injury, only nine per cent of those surveyed were working full-time and 57 per cent reported they were not working.
“What struck me was that we’re taking people who have an attachment to the labour force and turning them into poor people,” she said.
Among those who were home owners before their injuries, 18 per cent said they sold their properties and started renting, 20 per cent said they sold their homes to buy a less expensive one and 17 per cent reported moving into subsidized housing.
“A workplace injury can be devastating on many levels and we’re not very good at getting people back to work,” said Heath.
Another study, Poverty Status of Injured Workers with Permanent Impairments: Poverty and Health Relationship, presented at the Research Action Alliance on the Consequences of Work Injury (RAACWI) Symposium in November 2011 showed many injured workers live below the poverty line no matter what method of measuring poverty is used.
The study found that, based on before tax income, 17.3 per cent of injured workers lived below the poverty line when the low income cut off (LICO) method of measuring poverty was used and 25.8 per cent when the low income measure method was used.
When the market basket measure method was used, 11.7 per cent were considered to be in poverty.
“The consequences of an individual living in poverty mean that their whole family is living in poverty, because poverty is estimated based on family income,” said Peri Ballantyne, a professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and one of the researchers involved in the study. “The consequences of poverty on people is really dire, it’s bad for their health, it’s bad for their opportunities of all kinds.”
There should be policies in the workers’ compensation boards of every jurisdiction that people should not, as the result of an accident that was no fault of their own, be allowed to live in squalor, said Ballantyne.
Ballantyne believes workers’ compensation boards should be measuring peoples’ economic security and the gap between their pre- and post-accident incomes.
“In my opinion there should be an ombudsperson who makes an issue out of following those people who fall below their previous standard of living,” she said.
When Ballantyne has done qualitative research on work injury, she said workers have reported they face discrimination when looking for a new job post-injury. During the hiring process workers have to declare they are a person who has had a workers’ compensation claim, she said.
“And once they do that, employers discriminate against them in terms of hiring because employers are worried about getting workers that are going to have problems later.”
Employers should look at innovative ways to accommodate employees. Even with a prosthetic arm, Mantis finds a way to do physically labourious work at his company.
“Accommodating my disability is not a big deal if I have some control over the process,” said Mantis.
Employers who make the time to sit down with injured employees and talk about how the work should be divided up will find injured workers can successfully reintegrate into the workplace, he said.
Because Mantis is missing his left arm, he can’t do things like bang on the rafters of a house to get a roofing project done. But he’s very capable of doing activities that don’t involve reaching, like nailing things down, he said.
“We organize our work quite effectively,” he said.
