Did Canada Post bosses profit from fraudulent injury reports?

Postal union concerned change in injury reporting led to understatement of incidence rate and allowed management to receive bonuses

Did Canada Post bosses profit from fraudulent injury reports?

OTTAWA (CNW) - The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has asked the Auditor General of Canada to investigate what led Canada Post to fraudulently report workplace injuries and whether these decisions led to improper bonuses being paid to senior management.

"There is no disputing that Canada Post submitted incomplete injury reports to Labour Canada for a number of years," says Mike Palecek, National President of CUPW. "We'd like to know how this affected bonuses at Canada Post, which has the highest injury rate in the federal sector."

 

Canada Post changed the reporting of lost time injuries to provide accident frequency rather than a raw number of lost-time accidents. This falls in direct contradiction with Labour Canada's definition of disabling injuries. The improper redefinition seems to be a deliberate attempt by Canada Post management to report a steady reduction in disabling injuries in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

A 2009 special examination of Canada Post by the Auditor General found that manager scorecards recorded safety as the highest objective. This, coupled with the improper redefinition of disabling injuries by Canada Post, brings into question whether managers received bonuses that they weren't entitled to.

"Canada Post reporting to Labour Canada has been negligible and faulty, and these errors have permitted Canada Post to understate the actual incidence rate of injuries. CUPW wants to know why this is happening and put an end to this misrepresentation," CUPW said in a news release.

SOURCE: Canadian Union of Postal Workers

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