Amid ongoing layoffs at Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), some employees who have received notice — and their union — are raising concerns about the agency’s implementation of artificial intelligence (AI).
The Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU), which represents WSIB workers, announced the job cuts earlier this month. Including both unionized and non-unionized employees, 566 people were affected, OCEU president Harry Goslin told CBC News last week.
Brittnee Gauthier, a post-adjustment case manager in Sudbury, was one of them. Before the layoffs, Gauthier said WSIB made “a huge push” internally to implement a new AI claim summary tool to review and summarize documents.
“I can only deduce that the future will be AI for this company,” she said.
“I’m sure AI can help,” she said. “We all were excited about this tool that was getting launched — until we found out it was making us all redundant. So, I just worry about who’s next.”
Union president Goslin said the OCEU is concerned about how the WSIB will handle claims going forward, and said he thinks the job cuts are “about automating the work.”
The layoffs were a “difficult business decision,” the WSIB told CBC News when they were first announced.
WSIB said it is “always looking at ways to modernize our business and deliver the best support for people while delivering value for the premiums Ontario businesses pay.”
WSIB records show it awarded a $7.3 million contract to Owl.co for a “claims summary tool subscription” in February. In October, WSIB CEO Jeff Lang is scheduled to speak at a Las Vegas conference alongside Owl.co CEO Sean Merat about how “WSIB is deploying AI at extraordinary scale.”
CBC News asked WSIB whether the implementation of AI tools was related to recent layoffs.
“The WSIB for years has used technology tools to reduce repetitive administrative work and give our team more time to focus on helping people recover and return to work,” the agency wrote.
“The claim summary tool, for example, organizes information and documents so team members can understand a claim more quickly.”
Employees who were laid off said they were notified on a brief group call with hundreds of other people, which left them with many questions and few answers.
Gauthier said it was “devastating” news after she left a 10-year career to join the WSIB, but believes “injured workers are going to feel the brunt of this.”
She continued: “Right away, I was thinking about my claims: I have over 200 claims on my desk.”
Gauthier is now rushing to process these claims, she said, “because people are just going to be falling off.”
When asked how the changes might affect injured workers, Goslin said legislation lays out that a decision should be made on its merits in each case.
“AI is only as good as you program it and the bumpers that you put in place,” he said, raising conerns that services to claimants will be diminished.
The WSIB told CBC that it “continues to be here to help people after a workplace injury or illness all across Ontario. How people access our services has not changed.”
Sanjeev Kapoor is a WSIB customer service representative in Sudbury who was included in the layoffs. His wife, Alyson Love-Kapoor, said the first thing their son asked was: “Are we going to lose our house?”
“You can’t [answer questions like that],” Kapoor said. “He doesn’t want us to talk about it, because he gets upset.”
Kapoor said WSIB has been “pushing [AI] down people’s throats” on the job, and he and his wife “have a feeling that this whole layoff thing is not done yet.”
Kapoor said he and others were told to train an AI system, telling if it had given correct answers, and checking if it got policy numbers and dates correct.
“We were kind of training the AI to take over our own jobs,” Kapoor said, adding the AI had often provided incorrect policy numbers. Other employees have also complained about the accuracy and reliability of WSIB’s AI, Goslin told CBC News.
WSIB did not provide answers on the record to questions about the accuracy of its AI tools or whether is plans to use other AI programs.
The union has grievances about “the withholding of information concerning technological changes that are not being disclosed,” Goslin said, adding that it has also filed freedom of information requests.
WSIB is funded by individual companies and not by tax dollars. But it is still considered a provincial Crown corporation, reporting to — but operating at “arm’s length” from — Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development.
