Group items tagged

And on Dec. 2, Ambulance NB administrators across the province received new directions on how to fill vacant shifts. If a person calls in sick, or someone has requested vacation time and they must be replaced, the manager in charge of scheduling that shift would offer the shift to anyone with bilingual qualifications in the person's station, typically first part-time or casual employees. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of bilingual part-time or casual employees in many parts of the province. So the next group to receive offers is bilingual full-time employees, who would be called in for an overtime shift. If nobody is available, the offer is extended to bilingual paramedics from other jurisdictions.

That's not fair to the many dedicated unilingual paramedics across the province, says Trent Piercy, a paramedic with Ambulance NB and the secretary for paramedics' union CUPE Local 4848. "They are going to get offers, but it's going to come after that process has been exhausted," he said. Piercy said he understands that Ambulance NB has a legal obligation to offer service in both official languages.

But he said that if an ambulance arrives at the scene of an accident, makes the offer of service in both languages and learns that it can't provide care in the language requested, he believes Ambulance NB is still meeting its legal requirement if those unilingual paramedics request another crew with bilingual capabilities to respond to the scene. While they wait for them to arrive, he said, they can use existing translation services until that backup arrives.

"If we have another crew coming, is that not offering the service? If we offer translation, or have somebody come from one of our crews to translate on a call, is that not offering the service? Other avenues, I don't think, have been explored enough." Piercy said Ambulance NB has set a goal to have 60 per cent of its paramedics be able to offer service in both official languages. He believes that only about 35 per cent of the province's paramedics are currently bilingual. "It's going to take a very, very long time to get up there and the costs are going to go up," he said. The paramedics' union has filed a grievance about new hiring practices introduced in August 2014, which place new weight behind a candidate's linguistic abilities.

After having already expressed frustration with the challenges posed by those changes, he said, the provincial ambulance service has now made it more difficult for unilingual paramedics to find meaningful employment in the province, rather than trying to work through a long list of suggestions submitted by the union as potential alternatives to the new scheduling protocols. The union suggested finding ways to screen calls by language, making it possible to send ambulances with bilingual staff to scenes where a specific language is requested, and to explore translation equipment for use in provincial ambulances. Other ideas involved lowering the language requirements to a conversational level of French or English, alter the deployment protocols to keep unilingual ambulances away from areas that might require them to provide care in their weaker language, or improve language training resources for existing paramedics. Currently Ambulance NB has offered to cover the costs of distance-education language training from the Université de Moncton or Rosetta Stone, though the employee must complete the work on his or her own time.

But Piercy said so far the provincial service hasn't been willing to commit to exploring any of these ideas. "We will continue to work with stakeholders to find solutions that will best meet the needs of our patients and employees, while respecting our legal obligation," he said. The Daily Gleaner requested an interview with Katherine d'Entremont, the commissioner of official languages for New Brunswick, but was informed she declined to comment on this story.

While speaking with the paper about Ambulance NB's push to improve its language capabilities in August 2014, d'Entremont said the legal obligation to provide service in both official languages has been in place since before Ambulance NB launched in 2007. Back then, she said it wasn't her job to tell the provincial ambulance service or the Department of Health how the organization should reach its language goals, but simply to make recommendations on how to address deficiencies identified by the public. "I'm interested in the results of a plan as opposed to the means to get there," she said at the time. "My mandate is very specific in this regard. So once I've made recommendations, the rest is up to the institutions concerned."

Both Dominic Cardy, leader of the New Democratic Party of New Brunswick, and Kris Austin, leader of the People's Alliance of New Brunswick party, attended a rally co-ordinated by frustrated paramedics in Fredericton this week. Afterwards, Austin said he feels the way Ambulance NB is bolstering its language capabilities is flawed, saying that it unnecessarily punishes many qualified francophone and anglophone paramedics by freezing them out in favour of the smaller complement of bilingual professionals. The newspaper asked the Department of Health if Health Minister Victor Boudreau wanted to comment on the paramedic protests, but was told he was unavailable.

They carried signs saying they're not being treated equally because of a new scheduling system, which was set up as a response to complaints about Ambulance New Brunswick not meeting its legal requirements to serve patients in the language of their choice.

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 4848.

But under the new system, Ambulance New Brunswick calls bilingual part-time or casual employees first. Then it calls in full-time bilingual staff on overtime. Only when it can't find anyone else does it resort to unilingual employees.

That's a huge issue for our casual and part-time employees," Piercy said.

Margaret Melanson, Horizon's vice-president of quality and patient-centred care, said in a statement on Tuesday most of the people the health network employs for the incognito work are university students who are paid $16 to $18 an hour. Melanson said the first few language audits were conducted at such facilities as the Saint John Regional Hospital, The Moncton Hospital, the Miramichi Hospital and the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton. She said the undercover auditors included some Horizon employees as well as students and members of the public.

The practice first came to light at a Horizon board meeting earlier this year in Fredericton. The Vitalité Health Network said Tuesday it has done similar audits using students in the past, "in line with our responsibilities under the Official Languages Act." People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said Tuesday he is calling for an end to the "secret patient" exercise, which he said is intimidating unilingual Horizon employees. "We get calls from people who work in Horizon Health, unilingual employees, who are scared to death," Austin said in an interview. "They're saying things like, 'Are we going to be the next Wayne Grant if we don't provide bilingual service.' They are nervous. They don't know if they will be somehow punished. We're becoming too much like Quebec in terms of how we enforce our language policies. We have gotten so far from the original intent of bilingualism."

New Brunswick's commissioner of official languages Katherine d'Entremont launched an investigation last May after she wasn't served in French by unilingual commissionaire Wayne Grant, during a visit to the main government office building in Fredericton. The 10-month investigation caused a storm of controversy because after she raised the complaint, Grant lost his favourable front-desk position and was reassigned to an outdoor parking lot and the backroom of a government office building. D'Entremont declined to comment on the Horizon issue.

"As the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick will be addressing matters pertaining to official languages within the health networks in the 2015-16 annual report, comments on these issues will be made at the time of release of the annual report," said a statement from d'Entremont's office. In its last report, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick reported three complaints about the Horizon Health Network's inability to provide care in the language of a patient's choosing. Austin said that number is tiny considering the roughly 1 million hospital visits Horizon handles annually. "It is perplexing that the health network would spend any resources on a problem that appears to be virtually non-existent," he said. But senior executives within the regional health authority said that despite the small number of complaints, the health network has a legal mandate to ensure access to service in French or English.

Horizon CEO John McGarry said at the January board meeting where the language audits were discussed, Horizon is legally obligated to provide care in both official languages. "Most people don't complain. They will convert (to another language) and not complain. But the fact is the law in New Brunswick is the law," he said at the board meeting.

We strive to live within the law of New Brunswick. Frankly, we can't answer for that. We can't decide we're not going to charge HST on our parking. It's the law. We must do it. We can't make a decision not to." McGarry said he knows many New Brunswickers find language policies frustrating. "I would say, 'Talk to your lawmakers. I would say, 'We have so much to do. We can't be involved with trying to argue our way out of the law of New Brunswick.' Argue with lawmakers," he said. McGarry said Horizon has done well at providing care in the language of a patient's choosing. Where it has struggled in the past, he said, was in making the offer of service.

"Frankly, we can do a lot better job," he said. "So what we're trying to do is to say to people, 'You've got to provide the active offer.'" Norma Robinson, president of the CUPE health-care unions, said she was unaware of the language audits and has not received any complaints from union members.

"I haven't heard one thing from any place in Horizon that would indicate there is an issue with this," she said in an interview. However, Robinson said she feels the tactic may be "sneaky." "I'm a bit disturbed as to why they would go to that length and not just survey the patients and the public to see if they are being given the active offer in French and English," she said. - With files from Adam Bowie

"I'm here to listen to the province's eight million people, not the 8,000" general practitioners, Barrette told reporters on Nov. 28, the day he made public one of his more controversial proposals - threatening doctors with penalties of up to 30 per cent of their income if they don't see more patients.

Most people who observe the health-care system would say something had to give, something needed to be done," said Antonia Maioni, a professor in McGill University's Institute for Health and Social Policy.

During a heated exchange in the National Assembly with Diane Lamarre, the PQ's health critic, Barrette insinuated that she might be suffering from a "form of epilepsy" after she kept repeating the same questions about Bill 10. That remark drew a rebuke from House Speaker Jacques Chagnon.

But it's not Barrette's zingers that have made him so polarizing as health minister: it's his plans to overhaul the public system and the way he's gone about it.

Barrette, by comparison, announced his reforms only four months after being appointed health minister. None of his proposals - from abolishing regional health agencies to penalizing doctors financially - were alluded to in the Liberal election platform.

The reforms were unveiled in quick succession as Bills 10 and 20, with no public consultation beforehand.

Barrette has had a hard time garnering widespread support for Bill 10, his effort at restructuring Quebec's health system. The bill has two goals: to downsize Quebec's costly, Byzantine health bureaucracy, and to streamline the governance of its institutions.

Critics have assailed Bill 10 not so much for its goal of cutting administrative costs by more than $200 million a year as its objective to eliminate the boards of directors of many health institutions - from rehab centres to hospitals. Quebec's anglophone community is particularly concerned that many bilingual institutions would vanish in "one fell swoop," as former Liberal MNA Clifford Lincoln has warned. The bill would also confer on the health minister - in this case, Barrette - the power to hand-pick members of so-called mega boards.

140 amendments in December

continue to make services available in English - a measure that critics contend is still no guarantee for the anglo community. The relatively high number of amendments - even for a complex piece of legislation like Bill 10 - would suggest that Barrette underestimated both the opposition to his reforms and the possible unintended consequences.

In November, Barrette tabled Bill 20, which the minister himself described as "first the carrot, now the stick."

Like his first piece of legislation, Bill 20 has two goals: to compel both medical specialists and family doctors to follow more patients or risk being docked their pay; and to no longer cover in vitro fertilization under medicare.

Many couples and fertility specialists are also incensed by his plan to de-list IVF from medicare, denouncing his proposals as draconian and hastily formulated. There's no doubting that Barrette's proposed reforms are part of the Liberal government's austerity agenda. But beyond that, it's not so clear what his overall vision might be for Quebec's beleaguered health system, critics argue. And that lack of vision might mean the difference between whether those reforms succeed or fail.

By Bob Peterson / Rethinking Schools

long history of being staff-dominated.

And it has. In New Orleans, following Katrina, unionized teachers were fired and the entire system charterized.

But it recognizes that our future depends on redefining unionism from a narrow trade union model, focused almost exclusively on protecting union members, to a broader vision that sees the future of unionized workers tied directly to the interests of the entire working class and the communities, particularly communities of color, in which we live and work.

It requires confronting racist attitudes and past practices that have marginalized people of color both inside and outside unions.

Having decimated labor law and defunded public education, Walker proceeded to expand statewide the private school voucher program that has wreaked havoc on Milwaukee, and enacted one of the nation’s most generous income tax deductions for private school tuition.

For nearly a decade we pushed for a full-time release president, a proposal resisted by most professional staff.

“Social Justice Unionism: A Working Draft”

Social justice unionism is an organizing model that calls for a radical boost in internal union democracy and increased member participation.

business model that is so dependent on staff providing services

building union power at the school level in alliance with parents, community groups, and other social movements.

The importance of parent/community alliances was downplayed

instead of helping members organize to solve their own problems.

Our challenge in Milwaukee was to transform a staff-dominated, business/service-style teachers’ union into something quite different.

only saw the union newsletter after the staff had sent it to the printer.

Key elements of our local’s “reimagine” campaign and our subsequent work include:

Building strong ties and coalitions with parent, community, and civic organizations,

broader issues

action.

earliest victories was securing an extra $5/hour (after the first hour) for educational assistants when they “cover” a teacher’s classroom.

lobby

enlist parents

we amended the constitution

consistently promoting culturally responsive, social justice teaching.

encourage members to lead our work.

release two teachers to be organizers

appear en masse at school board meetings

to shift certain powers from the staff to the elected leadership

new teacher orientation and mentoring are available and of high quality.

The strength of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) 2012 strike,

rested in large part on their members’ connections to parent and community groups

Karen Lewis

Portland, Oregon, and St. Paul, Minnesota

In Milwaukee, our main coalition work has been building Schools and Communities United,

We wanted to move past reacting, being on the defensive, and appearing to be only against things.

Key to the coalition’s renewal was the development of a 32-page booklet, Fulfill the Promise: The Schools and Communities Our Children Deserve.

concerns of the broader community beyond the schoolhouse door

English and Spanish

Currently the coalition’s three committees focus on fighting school privatization, promoting community schools, and supporting progressive legislation.

schools as hubs for social and health support,

This work reminds me of the words of activist/musician Bernice Johnson Reagon, of Sweet Honey in the Rock: “If you are in a coalition and you are comfortable, that coalition is not broad enough.”

Our new professional staff is committed to a broader vision of unionism with an emphasis on organizing.

We need to become the “go-to” organizations in our communities on issues ranging from teacher development to anti-racist education to quality assessments.

nonprofit organization, the Milwaukee Center for Teaching, Learning, and Public Education

We provide professional development and services to our members

reclaim our classrooms and our profession.

We partner with the MPS administration through labor/management committees

multiple committee meetings, inservice trainings, book circles (for college credit), and individual help sessions on professional development plans or licensure issues.

we offered workshops that drew 150 teachers at a time.

More teachers were convinced to join our union, too, because our teaching and learning services are only open to members.

mandate 45 minutes of uninterrupted play in 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten classes

We also won a staggered start

convincing the school board to systematically expand bilingual education programs throughout the district.

school-based canvassing around issues and pro-education candidates, and organizing to remove ineffective principals.

With the plethora of federal and state mandates and the datatization of our culture,

It’s clear to me that what is necessary is a national movement led by activists at the local, state, and national levels within the AFT and NEA—in alliance with parents, students, and community groups—to take back our classrooms and our profession.

social justice content in our curriculum

waiting to use any perceived or real weakness in public schools as an excuse to accelerate their school privatization schemes,

On the other hand, speaking out can play into the hands of the privatizers as they seek to expand privately run charters

including participation on labor/management committees, lobbying school board members, and balancing mass mobilizations with the threat of mass mobilizations.

In the end, we recognize a key element in fighting privatization is to improve our public schools.

In Los Angeles, an activist caucus, Union Power, won leadership of the United Teachers Los Angeles, the second largest teacher local in the country.