Workplace Safety and Insurance Board developing a strategy for foreign agricultural workers

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is making changes regarding compensation and support for foreign agricultural workers in the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SAWP).

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“It’s a priority that needs to be addressed so we can help support our employers and stakeholders and our injured people for the next growing season and beyond,” said Kendra Holliday-Bryant, WSIB project director.

Why it matters: The strategy includes a revised adjudicative approach, enhanced communication and consulate engagement focused on recovery and return to work.

Set to launch in 2025, WSIB’s Foreign Agricultural Worker Strategy is a three-pillar approach focused on recovery and return to work in Ontario. It addresses prevention and compliance, communication and engagement, and case management.

“We needed to focus on SAWP because that’s where the practice applied,” she explained during an Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association webinar earlier this month. “We do hope to move into looking at everybody else around the third quarter next year.”

Holliday-Bryant said a 2023 batch decision handed down by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribune on post-injury earning calculations prompted a comprehensive review of SAWP worker and employer programming.

According to an article published on the Ontario Bar Association website, four appeals by Jamaican SAWP workers challenged how WSIB uses “the Ontario labour market to determine their post-injury earnings,” despite their ineligibility to work outside of the agriculture sector instead of the labour market in the workers’ home country.

Caribbean and Mexican foreign agricultural workers (FAWs) in the SAWP program are entitled to WSIB benefits.

Holliday Bryant said it became apparent that employers were confused about coverage for SAWP and the Temporary Foreign Worker—Agriculture Stream programs and a collective lack of understanding about when to report a claim, the available benefits, and government organization responsibility.

At a higher level, once an injured or ill worker returns to their home country, cultural differences in service delivery and payment barriers existed for the provider and recipient.

“(During COVID-19) we learned a lot (about) how wire transfers work, specifically in Mexico, and what we need to do on our end to make it easier for them to access those funds,” Holliday Bryant explained. “We’ve become attuned on how to do it a little bit better than we have historically.”

Additionally, WSIB staff found it challenging to connect with and monitor the workers’ recovery after returning to their home country, either because of technology or cultural expectations.

“WSIB is still very much reliant on using the phone (and) it’s customary to interact in-person versus over the phone when dealing with the government in Mexico,” she said. “That’s a disconnect and doesn’t build trust in the recovery and return-to-work process.”

Partnering with Workplace Health and Safety Services will assist WSIB in developing employer and worker-based strategies, including monitoring compliance within the sector and providing staff with sector-specific compliance training.

Case management will develop a new adjudicative practice document, align payment for loss of earnings between contracts to reflect actual loss of earnings, amend the identification of suitable occupation to account for the home labour market, and refresh policy for workers participating in SAWP.

“If we have to go to a suitable occupation in a home country, what does that look like for retraining?” she posed. “How do we support an individual? But how can we also support the return to work in Ontario following a workplace accident.”

Enhancements to WSIB.ca and new information about FAW and SAWP participants will help address communication and engagement cultural and technological shortfalls. Additionally, there will be increased communication between consulates, liaison offices, Canadian departments, ministries and agencies, industry representatives and the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada.

“We’re going to need to work together to help the person come back into the program and make sure they can recover,” she said. “(Bringing) somebody back to work lowers the cost of the claim, which results in no impacts to premiums.”