TORONTO — The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is eliminating 466 positions across Ontario in what it calls a “difficult business decision” to consolidate back-office claims and account management functions.The Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU), which represents the workers, said employees in nine communities received redundancy notices this week. The largest cuts are in Sudbury (136 positions) and Windsor (131), followed by Thunder Bay (55), Sault Ste. Marie (20), North Bay (15) and Timmins (12). Additional losses are expected in St. Catharines, Guelph and Kingston. Another 155 jobs in Waterloo are scheduled to be cut in about a year.Union president Harry Goslin described the moves as a “gut punch” and warned they will worsen existing workload problems and delay services for injured workers. “We are already under-resourced as it is,” he said. “It will hurt injured workers in Ontario.”The WSIB said most claim and account services are already delivered online or by phone and that local return-to-work support teams will remain in place. .Affected employees have been offered the chance to relocate to the agency’s London headquarters or to new offices planned in Toronto and Mississauga, along with résumé assistance, job-search support and continued benefits, including mental-health coverage.Actual job losses may be lower than 466 if workers accept relocation offers, the board stated. Physical offices in several northern and smaller centres had already been closed in recent years; the current changes focus on remaining remote and regional roles.The restructuring comes roughly two weeks after the provincial government announced a review of the WSIB and several other agencies, and less than a year after WSIB workers staged a lengthy strike over staffing levels and workloads.
