Fair compensation review: A review of the impact of the Manitoba Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) assessment rate model on fair compensation for workers and equitable assessments for employers

"The Manitoba Federation of Labour has had concerns about claims suppression and the experience rating system since its inception. The Province called for an external review of the WCB rate assessment model called “Maintaining Fair and Equitable Compensation”. The Province hired Paul Petrie, a WCB expert from B.C. to conduct an external review. Results from that review were published in the first week of April: WCB experts from across the country will be interested in Mr. Petrie’s findings. Mr. Petrie’s report titled Fair Compensation Review was released on the 100th anniversary of the release of the Meredith Report which established what is known as the “historic tradeoff”: workers gave up their right to sue an employer for negligence which caused injury or harm on the job in return for guaranteed no-fault compensation when injury or illness occurred. The report confirms the growing problems with experience rating, noting that it can actually contribute to unsafe workplaces rather than prevent them. Although he did not go so far as to recommend moving away from the experience rating model altogether – a recommendation that would have been warmly received by worker advocates - Petrie makes 27 recommendations that would help make Manitoba workplaces safer and allow injured workers to seek compensation without fear of reprisal from their employers." --summary by Lynne Fernandez, CCPA Manitoba -