Workers Without Work: Injured Workers and Well-Being<\/a><\/em>, looks at how injured workers\u2019 well-being suffers as a result of being deprived from work. Stone and her team of researchers conducted twelve focus groups in Western Ontario to obtain first-hand accounts on how their lives were impacted by their injuries.<\/p>\n\u201cFor me, personally, it was gratifying to be able document these stories because I had known for a long time about all the horrible things that had happened to injured workers,\u201d said Stone during a phone interview. \u201cAnd by documenting what they go through and publishing it, I would be in a position to make some small level of change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Injured workers are often met with a sense of distrust \u2013 as if all they want to do is stay home and get paid. But Stone\u2019s study suggests that most workers truly want to get back to work; their injury is a devastating and distressing event in their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest thing of my life was not being able to go back to nursing,\u201d said one woman in Stone\u2019s study. \u201cThat\u2019s what I loved. I truly loved it and I was working towards my RNs, I was working and going to school, unions, Friday night and Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a society that encourages all of us to distrust each and everybody else,\u201d explained Stone. \u201cWe also live in a society that privileges the visible, which means that if you have any kind of invisible injury or disability, you\u2019re automatically suspected of trying to get away with something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge problem because most disabilities aren\u2019t visible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to coping with their new reality, injured workers also have to deal with family members and co-workers who aren\u2019t as understanding of their situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest part is when you get some co-workers saying well, \u2018I wish I could be off like you\u2019, and stuff like that,\u201d said one man, who was a pipe fitter.<\/p>\n
Another participant of Stone\u2019s study, a bulldozer operator, reflected on the lack of understanding from his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith my family, I think I was totally rejected, because I wasn\u2019t working,\u201d said the man. \u201cMy father is very traditional where, you know, you never miss a day. You work, and you work no matter whether it\u2019s raining or, if you are sore, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some injured workers reported feeling abandoned by co-workers with whom they were close.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still don\u2019t talk to almost all the men that worked for me for all those years,\u201d said one construction worker. \u201cBefore that, we might well have been sitting in the bar together all evening or spent the weekend in. As soon as I was hurt, hey, you\u2019re an outcast; you\u2019re out of it!\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of all that, injured workers also have to deal with the difficult process of claims, retraining or obtaining modified duties. One participant in Stone\u2019s study, an equipment operator with back, shoulder and neck injuries, recounted how his employer\u2019s concept of modified duties was to have him wheel cement using a wheelbarrow.<\/p>\n
Leslie Sanderson, a labour relations officer with the Union of National Employees, said this situation is often a product of poor medical evidence \u2013 in fact, she says it\u2019s often the biggest hurdle to obtain proper accommodation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers, employees and unions have to rely on medical opinions,\u201d explained Sanderson. \u201cIf your doctor isn\u2019t familiar with the process of providing medical recommendations for accommodations, that becomes a difficult task for everyone relying on that information.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Sanderson, a common difficulty is getting doctors to provide the proper information. She said employers should be sending proper letters asking for proper information, along with the employee\u2019s job description.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did you see the person? What\u2019s the prognosis for return? What are the restrictions and limitations on this person returning to work and what are the recommended accommodations? A lot of doctors do not understand what is required \u2013 and a lot of employers don\u2019t send the job description along with this letter. The doctors really need that document to understand the worker\u2019s position.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even if employees succeed in getting modified duties, they can still be faced with a lack of understanding from their co-workers. In Stone\u2019s study, one customer service clerk shared her experience:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy coworkers are something else,\u201d said the woman. \u201cThey make you feel like you\u2019re this high, cause you can\u2019t do something. And they\u2019ve actually voiced it. \u2018Do we have to do everything around here?\u2019\u2026 and I don\u2019t appreciate them rubbing it in my face on top of it. Because an injury is not just \u2013 it comes with a lot of other problems that you have to deal with. So you don\u2019t \u2013 you don\u2019t need that. You don\u2019t need the BS from co-workers that don\u2019t understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanderson often encourages members with significant health problems to be open with their employer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat comes with some risks,\u201d she cautioned. \u201cBut if you\u2019re open with them, there seems to be more trust created. It\u2019s easier for people to understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanderson believes the issue of accommodation is especially topical, given the aging demographic of society as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I feel that we should never have to deal with accommodation issues in a grievance,\u201d said Sanderson. \u201cIt should be a process where we\u2019re all working together to get a worker back to work as quickly as medically possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Professor Stone, she would like to see unions regularly educating their membership on the issue of injured workers \u2013 going beyond injury-prevention training and focusing on how to treat injured workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should be sensitising everybody to the fact that it\u2019s not the worker\u2019s fault that they got injured. They need the support of their co-workers. They need the support of their union. They need the support of management.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On top of dealing with their physical pain, injured workers often have to grapple with a new sense of identity. According to Sharon-Dale Stone, an associate professor of sociology at Lakehead University and the principal investigator for a study on injured workers, there\u2019s a stigma associated to being an injured worker. Her paper, entitled Workers … <\/p>\n
>> “Injured Workers: a painful identity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,19,173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4259,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions\/4259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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