TORONTO, (July 20, 2005) — Ontario Trucking Association President David Bradley is urging Workplace Safety and Insurance Board President and Acting Chair Jill Hutcheon to reject a proposed increase in premiums.

In a letter written in “the strongest possible terms,” Bradley insisted that the hike in payroll taxes (which is how he describes WSIB premiums) was unacceptable to the trucking industry.

OTA has participated in the WSIB’s rate consultations over the past nine months, repeatedly arguing that rate hikes could, and should, be avoided.

The letter — also sent to Labour Minister Steve Peters, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara and Premier Dalton McGuinty — went on to say the employer community would rather the WSIB move up the date of achieving full funding from 2014 to 2016 or beyond in order to keep rates stable than face a payroll tax hike.

“From our perspective, this full funding objective is clearly the pressure that the Board has the greatest control over and the greatest ability to modify in order to eliminate the need for rate hikes,” Bradley said in a press release.

“It is important to note that it was in fact originally employer groups that pressed the Board to deal with its unfunded liability issue by committing to the ‘full funding by 2014′ goal.”

The reason for this position, Bradley continues, was employers’ concerns about the possibility of future massive rate hikes. “I think it is also extremely relevant to remember that at that time employers agreed to increased premiums in the short term in order to ensure that rates would continue to decrease over the long term,” he said. “That was the basis for the 2014 policy, increased rates up front, elimination of the unfunded liability by 2014, and the reduction in premiums as we approached that 2014 date.”

Bradley added that increasing premiums now would violate the spirit of the consensus around 2014. “As employers we accepted higher rates over the past two decades based on the promise of lower rates,” he said. “The purpose of the 2014 policy was to ensure that rates would not go up, but now, by proposing an increase in rates, the WSIB has both violated our trust that rates would go down and invalidated the 2014 policy.”

WSIB’s own analysis showed that there is currently no funding crisis, Bradley insists, and that simply by moving the target date for eliminating the unfunded liability to 2016 the need for a rate hike at this time would be removed.