This is not legal advice! What you are getting here is just general legal information. It is not a substitute for advice from an actual lawyer about your specific situation. If you need legal advice, we urge you to find a lawyer who can help you.
The Workers’ Compensation Board is an independent organization financed by employers that gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in extreme situations, retraining.
Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board
- The WCB functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
- WCB coverage is mandatory for many employers. About 80% of Alberta workers are covered by the WCB.
- Every year about 130,000 claims are filed with the WCB; 10% are ruled ineligible.
- Fewer than 2% of claims are for a psychological injury; of those, about a third are made by first responders.
- Sources: Workers’ Compensation Board annual reports, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada
If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WCB will help you.
- Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
- Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
- Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.
Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WCB often covers.
However, historically, the WCB has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation the WCB was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.
It has less experience with mental health harms, which it classifies as psychological injuries, and the turndown rates for these are very high. For these types of claims, the WCB requires you to prove that your workplace was the “predominant” cause of your injury, whereas proof for other claims is only that the workplace was a “substantial” cause. That higher standard, worker advocates say, is another reason, in addition to the established WCB culture, why so few harassment claims to the WCB are successful.
Though we’re not saying don’t bother applying for WCB benefits, you should be aware that it’s unlikely your claim will be successful. If you want to pursue the claim after being denied, you’ll need to be prepared to go through an appeal process. Appealing can take a long time, and, of the few appeals that are heard, many are denied.
Legally, if your employer is a WCB member, they are required to report any injuries that occur in their workplace. But really most are unlikely to do this in sexual harassment cases, because they often deny the harassment occurred or that it caused real harm.
If you want to apply for disability insurance through your workplace provider, the insurer may require you to apply to the WCB first, and appeal if you are turned down.
Pros and cons of going to the WCB
Pros
- It isn’t expensive or very complicated.
- WCB benefits can be generous. Wage replacement is up to 90% of your net salary.
- Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. There may be some legal resources to help if you still want to represent yourself.
Cons
- The WCB doesn’t investigate or adjudicate whether you were sexually harassed. If you are looking for someone to tell you that you were sexually harassed, and to punish the harasser or your employer for allowing the harassment, the WCB won’t give you that.
- The WCB has a high rate of denying mental stress or injury claims.
- If the WCB rejects your claim and you appeal, the appeal process may be lengthy.
- You can’t apply to the WCB secretly. You must notify your employer about your injury right away, which means they will have information about your private health circumstances.
- Your employer will have the opportunity to dispute your claim. It’s very likely they will do this, in which case proving your case will be more difficult.
- Your employer will be updated about any changes to your claim. That means they will continue to know about your personal health situation, even if you don’t work for them anymore.
- To make a claim, you will need a medical professional to say that you’ve suffered an injury. If you don’t have easy access to a medical professional who will do this, making a claim will be harder.
Psychological injury claims
The WCB awards benefits due to the injury you sustained, which in your case would be damaged mental health. This requires a diagnosis of conditions described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5, like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder, or anxiety.
Under WCB guidelines there are two categories of mental health injuries:
Chronic onset psychological injuries or stress develops over time from ongoing work-related stressors. Being repeatedly sexually harassed by a co-worker might lead to this type of injury. This harassment has to be the major, or predominant, cause of the harm.
Traumatic onset psychological injury or stress results from a specific traumatic event, such as harassment that includes physical violence, the threat of physical violence, or a life-threatening situation. The incident itself is the source of the trauma. These claims are often based on a single traumatic event, but the WCB can also consider multiple incidents if the cumulative impact is traumatic. Examples might be witnessing the death of or severe injury to a colleague or being physically threatened yourself at work. It’s not likely this type of claim fits your situation.
The WCB won’t cover every kind of mental stress that arises at work. If you develop a mental health condition caused by your employer making changes to your shifts or other working conditions, for example, or firing you, or due to interpersonal conflicts that don’t involve harassment, you aren’t eligible to file a claim.
How to make a WCB application
First, you must decide if filing a claim with the WCB is the right choice for you. If you do choose to go to the WCB, you’ll find more information about work-related mental stress injuries and the application process on the website. See also submitting a report. You can file the completed online form (Worker Report of Injury or Occupational Disease) electronically (follow the instructional video on the WCB website)
To file a claim with the WCB, you must be employed in a business or industry that is covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. About 80% of workers in Alberta are included under the act
For more information
The WSB website includes a fact sheet answering frequently asked questions about psychological injury claims. There are also fact sheets specifically about how chronic onset and traumatic psychological injuries are defined, how decisions to accept claims are made, and what happens next if a claim goes ahead.
The Worker Handbook is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of the claim process, including how to appeal a WSB decision.
Legal help
Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. Here are some places that offer free or lower-cost legal services:
- The Advisor Office is an independent government agency that provides free and confidential services about workplace injuries and compensation to workers. This office can provide information, advice, and help with representation to you throughout the appeals process.
- At the Women’s Centre of Calgary female volunteer lawyers offer free half-hour legal advice sessions.
- Calgary Legal Guidance’s Sahwoo mohkaak tsi ma taas clinic provides Indigenous community members free legal advice on a variety of areas, including employment law. It may be able to offer free legal representation.
- JusticeNet spellcheck interferes with this link is a not-for-profit service for those whose income is too high to qualify for legal aid but too low to afford regular legal fees. To qualify you must have a net family income under $70,000, or $90,000 if there are three or more people in your family, and be experiencing financial difficulties. Participating lawyers’ reduced rates vary depending on your family size and income.
- Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.
For advice on hiring a lawyer, see How to find and work with a lawyer.
