Ex-Nortel workers: Cutting off the disabled

Any bankruptcy is painful. Workers lose their jobs and creditors can lose their shirts — but there is usually a chance to bounce back.

Not so for Nortel employees who were on long-term disability payments at the time their employer went bankrupt nearly two years ago. They can’t start over. Yet their disability payments will be cut off at the end of this month, after the Conservatives used their new majority in the Senate to defeat efforts to keep them above water.

Read the full story on the Toronto Star.

Woman Loses Long Term Sick Benefits Because of Facebook Photos

A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer's insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Que., for the last year and a half after she was diagnosed with major depression.

Manulife wouldn't comment on Blanchard's case, but in a written statement sent to CBC News, the insurer said: "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook." It confirmed that it uses the popular social networking site to investigate clients

See the full story on the CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/19/quebec-facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html