WCB rates to decrease for most miners in Ontario

At a time when its reputation is being seriously damaged by claims of financial mismanagement, the Ontario Workers Compensation Board (WCB) is sending a mixed message to the provinces mining sector.

As a reward for improved safety records, companies which mine gold, nickel and uranium will pay lower rates to the board in 1994. However, other participants in the industry including diamond drillers, prospectors, contractors and producers of base metals and industrial minerals will pay higher rates.

Meanwhile, acrimony continues to swirl around the WCB and its $11-billion unfunded liability.

The Employers Council on Workers Compensation has called for a royal commission on the financial crisis facing the board. At the same time, bond-rating services are evaluating the consequences of the provincal governments assumption of the WCBs liability and opposition politicians are of the opinion that Chairman Odoardo Di Santo should resign. At a conference in Toronto recently, two of the WCBs top financial officers insisted there is no crisis in the boards finances only a little uncertainty as to how liabilities should be covered.

In 1994, the target average assessment rate in the province will be $3.20 per $100 of assessable payroll. The target average rate for the mining industry will be $6.52 in 1994 compared with $6.48 in 1993.

But the figure employers actually pay, economy-wide, will likely be $3.04, according to Ian Welton, director of the revenue policy branch of the WCB. Gold miners will pay $11.02 per $100 of payroll and nickel miners will pay $7.39. In 1993, rates for these two groups the largest employers in the mining sector were $11.95 and $7.85 respectively.

While the new rates represent a decrease, the drop does not fully reflect the significant gains in worker safety recorded by the mining industry, says John Blougg, secretary and manager of industrial relations for the Ontario Mining Association.

The WCB has operated under the same financial policy since 1984, even though that policy has allegedly failed to meet certain objectives. The problems facing Ontarios WCB seem unsolvable and relate to the fact that its compensation packages are proving prohibitively expensive. Not even the high-level Premiers Labor-Management Advisory Committee can seem to decide on how the unfunded liablility should be financed.

In the meantime, the WCB is working to improve fraud investigations, reduce administrative costs (a 4.5% reduction is targeted for 94) and develop programs which return injured workers to the workforce more quickly, according to Glenn Cooper, chief financial officer of the WCB. Cooper predicts the number of people paying into the WCB system in Ontario in 1994 will drop by 2.9% to about 2.8 million from a high of 3.3 million in 1989.

Directors of the WCB met on Dec. 17 to discuss further plans. They have deferred, until Jan. 28, the mining industrys request to have all Class B rate groups move to their target rates in 1994.

The writer is editor of Canadian Mining Journal.