Former General Electric employee Roger Fowler will have the support of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) as he presents his occupational health claim in front of a tribunal next month.
Fowler, a member of the UNIFOR retirees’ advisory committee, has been a longtime advocate for workers or their survivors seeking compensation for long-term exposure to toxic chemicals at GE’s plant in Peterborough.
He worked at GE for 22 years and has survived colorectal cancer which he says was caused by exposure to chemicals at the site.
But his occupational disease claim was denied in the 1990s and then later rejected at a Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals tribunal in 2009.
But Fowler is now set for another tribunal in January.
And on Wednesday, Fowler received a letter from the WSIB stating it will present new information for his case and make a request for reconsideration on his behalf.
“They would like the decision (claim) to be reversed… oh it’s amazing,” said an emotional Fowler during a live interview on The Morning Show on CHEX on Thursday. “This has taken a long time.”
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Fowler, 71, is among hundreds of former employees who blame their illnesses on exposure to chemicals at the site.
Recently the WSIB stated 30 previously denied cases would be overturned thanks to new research on the history of chemicals used at the plant. Much of the research came from Bob and Dale DeMatteo’s published report earlier this year which revealed workers were exposed to more than 3,000 toxic chemicals (often over levels now deemed safe) from 1945 to 2000.
Fowler said the original review of his claim was riddled with errors and omissions.
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“They didn’t do due diligence or do any research looking up any of the claims that I had made,” he said. “They took 10 and a half years of exposure that I had been given by the WSIB and said I only had three and a half years … They also said they didn’t believe me when I said the pipes were covered in asbestos at GE which everybody said they were.”
“The report said there were no chemicals in these buildings … the buildings were all cleaned up when they wrote this report.”
Fowler says he was hoping all 250 claims would be complete by Christmas but says that won’t happen but the 30 cases is a good start.
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