Workplace injuries are common, avoidable, and unacceptable. The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada reveals how employers and governments engage in ineffective injury prevention efforts, intervening only when necessary to maintain standard legitimacy. Barnetson sheds light on this faulty system, highlighting the way in which employers create dangerous work environments yet pour billions of dollars into compensation and treatment. Examining this dynamic clarifies the way in which production costs are passed on to workers in the form of workplace injuries.

In September 2010, at the request of the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), an independent review of its funding and related matters was conducted, and to advise the Minister of Labour as to what would constitute "a fair level of indexation for partially disabled workers." The Funding Review was asked to consider six specific issues: the WSIB's unfunded liability (UFL); premium rate setting; rate groups; employer incentives; occupational diseases; and indexation of benefits for partially disabled workers.--Document.

Workplace injuries happen every day and can profoundly affect workers, their families, and the communities in which they live. This textbook is for workers and students looking for an introduction to injury prevention on the job. Foster and Barnetson bring the field into the twenty-first century by including discussions of how precarious employment, gender, and ill-health can be better handled in Canadian OHS.