Orlando Buonastella has worked at Injured Workers' Consultants (IWC) for approximately 30 years. His job consists of looking after the legal welfare of injured workers, which means everything "from the street to the tribunal". IWC's role is to represent individual workers at the relevant appeal tribunals, as well as to organise injured workers in making joint demands and representations to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the government and all relevant institutions. Orlando represents IWC in the executive of the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups.

Orlando's experience in the injured workers' movement has taken him through many changes in the compensation system. His experience with various workers' compensation system programs and their changes over time, such as the move from a pension system to a wage-loss system, are useful in understanding the legal and practical problems faced by injured workers. One of his interests is the education of injured workers into their own history and in the original principles of our workers' compensation system, which are often forgotten in the current discourse. He has worked on the Injured Workers' History Project, which is headed by Robert Storey, and the Injured Workers' Speaker School, a community capacity building initiative within RAACWI.

Orlando is very much interested in research, and was inspired by a participatory research project he was involved in several years ago, entitled Workers Participatory Research Project. He also believes that research findings and analysis need to be popularized and made accessible to the public. He has worked on a theatre project entitled Easy Money that popularizes the research of Joan Eakin in her study of small business and workers' interactions around the issue of early and safe return to work.

Orlando's interest in research, especially community-based research, is also motivated by the fact that research changes injured workers' themselves. It is a process that helps injured workers come out of isolation and alienation, builds confidence and self esteem, and enhances support and solidarity after trauma.