To Whom It May Concern,

 

When will people take notice of the issues claimants have with the Alberta WCB? Time and time again claimants are begging to be heard but the apathy and lack of accessibility to the Board prevents this from happening each and every time. The Board of Directors consists of three members who are to represent workers’ interests but workers are unable to communicate with them. How are they to serve workers when they are not available to workers?

Nothing makes these issues more evident than the WCB hostage taking by Patrick Clayton on October 21, 2009. A helpless and frustrated man did something extreme and unnecessary because he wanted to be heard. This is not an uncommon feeling for an injured worker dealing with the Alberta WCB to have. Even a claimant taken hostage that day has now expressed his empathy with the frustrations of Mr. Clayton and the inability to get resolution from the WCB. We are by no means condoning the actions of Mr. Clayton but rather are able to sympathize with the frustration he felt by being unable to obtain any action on his concerns surrounding his claim.  

Furthermore, the WCB’s inability to offer their own employees affected by the hostage taking situation modified duties screams of irony. An employee that was suffering post traumatic stress disorder from this experience was fired from the WCB due to a lack of modified duties available. Unlike most injured workers, the WCB employee was not placed on worker’s compensation, retrained, or given a supported job search- she was fired.

In this whole situation the WCB as an organization has been made out to be a victim rather than a bureaucracy that needs a complete audit of the processes and, consequently, changes to the system.  The worker crying out has once again been muted and some of the employees taken hostage disregarded. The hostage taking situation at the WCB should have directed the Board to take notice of their inadequacies and shortcomings surrounding their customer service standards and processes. Instead the WCB regarded the situation as a signal to upgrade their security measures. The WCB has missed what the hostage taking situation was stressing: that the WCB is ignorant of claimant’s concerns and the claimants are getting frustrated and begging for change. They did not hear the worker’s cries and rather turned it into an issue of security measures rather than trying to improve the system for all injured workers. Already the cries for help from the hostage taking of 2009 have fallen on deaf ears and still claimants continue to have the same frustrations and heightened emotion surrounding the WCB. When will things change?

Regards,

Julie Hallonquist

 

Communications Specialist 

Cumming Consulting Inc.