Date: Friday, July 10th, 2020
From: The Building Union of Canada Executive Board
To: Members of The Building Union of Canada
Re: Covid-19 at the Job Site – What You Need to Know
A situation arose recently at one of the BUC’s job sites where an individual who was delivering materials to the job site had previously come in contact with someone who had Covid-19. As a precautionary measure, the employer decided to shut down the job site and sent all workers home, including BUC’S members.
An employer who sends workers home in order to prevent the potential spread of Covid-19 in the workplace is not obligated to pay the wages of those workers. Instead, such workers may apply for Employment Insurance benefits or CERB benefits.
If a worker contracts Covid-19 while at work (that is, the worker has a diagnosis or symptoms of Covid-19), the worker may file a claim for WSIB benefits. WSIB will treat this claim in the same manner as any workplace illness claim. However, if you believe that you were exposed to Covid-19 at work, but you do not have a diagnosis or symptoms of Covid-19, you should NOT file a WSIB claim. Instead, construction workers in this situation may voluntarily choose to file an “exposure incident form” through the Construction Exposure Incident Reporting (CEIR) program which was set up by WSIB specifically for construction workers. This is a voluntary reporting program and the worker will be assigned an incident number. If the worker does become ill in the future, the WSIB will be able to process the claim faster. Again, there is no obligation on construction workers to do this, it is totally voluntary.
If you have any questions regarding Covid-19 and your job site, please contact your BUC representatives.
