WCB staff paid bonuses for getting injured workers off benefit payments

WCB staff get annual bonuses for meeting corporate goals — such as swiftly getting more injured workers back to work and off benefit payments — the Alberta Liberals revealed Wednesday.

The Workers’ Compensation Board paid out about $8 million to all its 1,500 employees for their performance in 2009.

Alberta Liberal employment critic Hugh MacDonald said the bonus system could alter the decision-making process as case workers have a financial interest in reducing the length of benefits to some injured workers.

"That is wrong. That is so unfair," he said. "It distorts the objectivity of the WCB."

MacDonald obtained letters sent to WCB staff outlining their bonuses.

He said he became suspicious when many of the injured workers who approached him and asked for his help with their cases had their benefits cut off in December, at the end of the year.

MacDonald said he’s also concerned that workers are being pushed into "modified work" — a program when workers are able to return to the job site and take on a less-rigorous task while they are still recovering — even though they should be at home.

"They are making an effort to reduce claim costs by shortening the duration of some of their WCB files," MacDonald said.

However, WCB spokeswoman Jennifer Dagsvik said there is nothing wrong with the bonuses, saying all decisions about when a worker is fit to return to work, and go off benefits, are based on medical advice.

"We wouldn’t send someone back to work just to make a bonus," Dagsvik said. "If we weren’t doing it well, it would come back on us. And it isn’t. We have audits that are done and people are staying successfully at work . . . and when I say successful, I mean a healthy return to work."

Dagsvik said bonuses of up to eight per cent of a WCB employee’s annual salary are paid — an average of $5,600 in 2009 — to all 1,500 board employees if overall corporate objectives are met. The program, called goal sharing, has been in place since 1999.

Dagsvik added that injured workers who are off the job for more than six months have much more difficulty ever returning. The WCB also strives to keep premium costs for employers low.

But many Alberta workers and their families are unhappy with the system.

"You’re making my stomach turn," Calgarian Joan Gottfried said Wednesday when she learned of the bonus system. Gottfried’s partner Drew Braglin was injured three years ago while working as an elevator mechanic. His broken ankle led to a blood clot and has now developed into a painful, ongoing syndrome that makes working in his field difficult, she said.

The couple has been involved in a dispute with the WCB over benefits ever since — a stressful, aggravating process, Gottfried said.

"I have tried at length to get someone to listen."

In past years, the WCB bonuses have been paid out when the number of off-work claims that last three months or longer meets a target, when letters to workers are well-written, and when the number of employers in the Partners in Injury Reduction with a provincial safety certificate is increased.

That program was criticized by Alberta’s auditor general this year. Auditor general Merwan Saher said numerous employers who consistently fail to follow the province’s safety rules are part of the program.

"In short, although these employers do not comply with OHS orders, and their workers are much more likely to get injured on the job, these employers continue to receive Partners in Injury Reduction financial rebates," the auditor general wrote in his April report.

Although the Alberta WCB is a government-created entity, it is not a provincial department or crown corporation but an employer-funded insurance body. Workers’ compensation boards are meant to provide workers or their families with predictable, dependable benefits in the event of injury or death. The trade-off is workers are unable to sue their employers, in most cases.

A spokeswoman for Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said the minister would not comment on the bonus system. Janice Schroeder said the question of maintaining fairness is an issue for the WCB board of directors — made up of public members, workers’ representatives and employers’ representatives.

"It’s a rare occasion indeed when the government does get involved," Schroeder said.

kcryderman@theherald.canwest.com