Group items tagged

However, there are concerns. Organ solicitations have been criticized as unfair, because they enable donation to identified recipients rather than to a recipient on a waiting list. Celebrity status and access to resources clearly provide increased opportunities to find a donor. A person with a high profile or more appealing story may be perceived as getting ahead in the transplant system, which could influence the public against organ donation.4 Recipients who are computer literate, social media savvy or English-speaking have enhanced access to potential donors beyond their local community and are more likely to find a donor than those without these characteristics.2 Publicity surrounding personal stories involving organ solicitation can be misleading and encourage offers to the solicitor, without considering donations to those with greatest need.5 However, all living donation is inequitable in that the donor chooses to whom to donate — generally someone they know — without any requirement to donate to the wait-list recipient with the greatest need.

One concern with public solicitations for organs is the potential for exposure of the recipient to harms from a donor who is unknown to them, which may in turn damage the reputation of transplant programs.3 Canadian law requires a minimum donor age for living donors, voluntary consent and no exchange of goods for an organ.6 Public solicitation may increase the potential for exchange of valuable considerations for an organ, because the donor is unknown to the recipient.

Two recent, well-publicized Canadian cases focused attention on these issues. The owner of the Ottawa Senators hockey team, who needed a new liver, used his public profile to solicit an anonymous donor.7 In the other case, the family of a young girl who needed a liver transplant made a public appeal through a Facebook page.8 The solicitation was fuelled by media attention surrounding this touching story, whereby the child’s twin had received liver tissue donated by their father, who could only donate once. The solicitation received more than 500 responses from people willing to donate.8 These two public solicitations for organs received markedly different public responses: one faced criticism9 and the other garnered sympathy. The difference in public perceptions was likely due to the different recipient profiles. In both cases, anonymous donors came forward, were screened and donated a part of their livers.

There are no guidelines for public solicitation of organs in Canada. Canadian transplant programs have had to address this issue on a case-by-case basis, often without consensus. Within Canada, different responses to organ solicitation by potential donors may be producing inequity of access to organs. Transplant programs and their patients could benefit from guidance on how to address the challenges raised by public solicitations. Many transplant doctors would be comfortable with public solicitation only if the donor became a nondirected altruistic donor, by which the organ is allocated to the next suitable recipient on the waiting list rather than to the actual solicitor (unpublished survey data, July 2015). Transplant doctors consider the next best thing to be to ensure that a relationship existed between the recipient and the solicited donor before donation occurs.

Donors who respond to public solicitations should be considered for transplantation. However, transplant programs must ensure that the motivation for donation is based on altruism rather than secondary intention, and that donors meet medical and psychosocial criteria for living donors, provide informed consent and agree to meet the requirements of the program regarding contact with the recipient. Although they should not be dissuaded from donating to the intended recipient, solicited donors should be made aware of alternatives such as donating to the recipient with the greatest need. A model is Canada’s National Kidney Paired Donation program. This program is the best option for candidates who have living kidney donors who are willing to donate and medically able, but who are incompatible with their intended

recipient. The program coordinates a chain of multiple transplants so that a willing donor’s organ can find its way to a compatible recipient while the intended recipient also receives an organ.10 This system allows the most people in need of an organ to get one. Even if the solicited donor and recipient are compatible, they can still choose to enter the National Kidney Paired Donation program as a pair, to benefit the greater transplant community, because a critical number of pairs are required for the overall success of the program.10 Whether donors from a public solicitation should remain anonymous to their recipients is a decision best left to the transplant program.

Donations of living organs are valued. Solicited organ donation helps to identify willing donors. It is an important facet of living donation and should be promoted. However, solicited organ donors should be encouraged to consider anonymous nondirected organ donation within systems, such as the National Kidney Paired Donation program, to maximize the number of patients in need who receive a transplant from a willing altruistic donor.

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.

Even so, the policy paper introduces the idea of a smaller, local organization to co-ordinate the delivery of home care and primary care - something those familiar with the plans have been calling a "sub-LHIN." Several sources stressed that unlike the discredited CCAC model, these organizations would not mean the creation of another layer of bureaucracy. The job could be given to existing organizations such as community health centres, some speculated, and will allow for better planning. There will be no change in the relationship between the government and doctors, who will not report to the new organizations, one source said. "Our goal is to make it easier for patients to find a primary health-care provider when they need one, see that person quickly when they are sick, and find the care they need, closer to home," the Health Minister said in a statement.

Two reports this fall from Ontario Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk found as little as 61 cents out of every dollar spent by the agencies went to face-to-face client services, and few improvements had been made to correct problems identified years before. Health Minister Eric Hoskins, in a statement Wednesday, said the government "wants to reduce bureaucracy and administration in home and community care."

There has been widespread speculation about how far the reforms would go and how the province can restructure primary care at a time when it is waging an increasingly bitter battle with doctors, who have been without a fee agreement for more than a year. After the government imposed two across-the-board fee cuts this year, the Ontario Medical Association, which represents the province's doctors, began a public campaign criticizing the measures that it argues are hurting patient care. Senior government officials stressed that the plans mapped out in the paper would be the basis of consultations in the new year, and that no changes would be "imposed" on doctors. An OMA spokeswoman said the organization would not comment until it saw the paper.

Davidson also has an idea where to find the money. “We always tell them to look at their executives wages. It’s definitely a top heavy bloated organization.” Indeed, CBS CEO Dr. Graham Sher, earned more than $800 thousand last year. An astounding nine Vice Presidents together made another cool $3.2 million.

It’s one thing to want to keep your workers poor and precarious. Many companies do it. But donors? “These days donors probably have more complaints about scheduling and clinic times than employees do.” That’s what Ron Stockton told us when we first talked to him in January of this year. Stockton is the  NSUPE business agent for the PEI local now on strike. “With CBS it is never about delivering service, it is always about getting the biggest bang for your buck,” Stockton says. A 2015 press release issued by CBS announced the Canada-wide closure of three permanent clinics, the replacement of a permanent clinic with a mobile one, pulling mobile clinics from 16 communities, and “adjusting clinic schedules across the country.” “CBS is being transformed into a business, as opposed to a public service or a humanitarian organization. These days it’s all about automation and squeezing efficiencies out of donors and workers,” Stockton concludes.

“When you walk into the clinic you register by inserting your health card into some kind of ATM machine, then you have your blood taken by an employee who is too rushed to talk to you, then you schedule your next appointment at another machine. “Having  been a donor, I can tell you donors want to see people,” Stockton says. “I am old enough to remember the days when staff taking your blood had time to talk to you. “Doesn’t happen anymore, to CBS you are a piece of meat giving blood, you could be a bag.”

Lately CBS has been in the news because of its endorsement of Canadian Plasma Resources, a private for-profit company that wants to pay for plasma donations.  The Saskatchewan company is eying Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for expansion. Organizations such as Bloodwatch and public healthcare advocates in the Maritimes have strongly opposed the introduction of private for-profit clinics while we have an effective not-for-profit blood service already in place. Paying for donations is asking for trouble, they believe. But concerns around the quality of our blood supply go deeper. “Workers in our locals fear for the safety of this blood system altogether,” Davidson warns. “CBS is more concerned about cost savings than about the safety of the blood supply. They have  pared the organization down so much that all resilience and safety is removed, and we are going right back to 1997,” Davidson says.

“CBS tries to make its operation as lean as possible,” he says. “We cautioned them to make sure that there are no system failures such as the Krever enquiry identified. But they are continually watering it down. It’s all about dollars and cents for them.” When front line CBS workers are concerned about safety, then provincial Health ministers who fund CBS to the tune of $1 billion per year should listen, says Davidson. “We call upon the responsible ministers to step up and pay attention. We need to raise the alarm that things are not good.”

an
$84 billion, largely for-profit industry

Although a few states have extended some wage and hours protections to homecare workers, these workers enjoy no federal right to form a union or bargain collectively

Caring Across Generations campaign

the campaign’s collaborators spanned the community/labor spectrum, from AFSCME and the SEIU to 9 to 5, the Alliance of Retired Americans, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the YWCA

Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Association

Her group, mostly employers, goes to rallies, signs petitions and gives testimony in defense of caregivers because, as she says, “My quality of life depends on their quality of life.”

Caring Across Generations, like the National Domestic Workers Alliance, aims to build relationships between those doing the work and those they’re working for.

200 groups were signed on as campaign partners

argues for cuts to the defense budget, imposing financial transaction taxes and increasing corporate taxation

CAG is fighting to expand Medicaid and Medicare, and to protect Social Security and healthcare spending too.

Despite industry complaints that paying minimum wages will drive up the cost of care, CAG and its allies flooded the Labor Department website with positive comments. Since the public comment period closed on March 12, the group has been waiting with bated breath. The department has sixty days to review, after which the Office of Management and Budget has ninety days, and then the rules should go into effect

Since summer, local Care Councils have formed across the country, bringing people on all sides of the care equation together to fight budget cuts and attacks on union rights, and for increased funding for homecare. The councils have planned public Care Congresses in key cities

Homecare, after retail and nursing, is the third-fastest-growing workforce in the United States. But organizing has been slow and sometimes cutthroat

Jennifer Klein, who with Eileen Boris has written a book on organizing homecare

the workers are variously defined as public workers (employed by the state and paid through Medicaid) or independent contractors (working for private agencies) or they may be hired directly by the client

After 74,000 mostly Latina homecare workers in Los Angeles voted to join the SEIU in 1999, the labor movement celebrated—and then fell into a bitter turf war between the SEIU and the state, city and municipal employees’ union, AFSCME, over how California’s remaining homecare workers should be contracted and represented.

In contrast with traditional unions and movement leaders who have prioritized short-term legislative, ballot-measure or electoral campaigns, intersectional organizers emphasize building power over the long term

National Nurses United, does worry about simply going along with the trend toward homecare. “Obviously, we want people to have choices, but it can’t be driven by budgets,” she says. “As nurses, we’re still seeing the blowback from the deinstitutionalization of mental care.”

in several states where they represent caregivers, unions have created a registry of potential clients for their members

"I work with a lot of new staff in my role and they tell me, ""It's different here," she says. "Employees go above and beyond; they will do whatever it takes to make that difference in people's lives, whether it is a patient or a co-worker." Successfully recruiting employees who embrace Covenant Health's compassionate goals and values is no accident but, rather, it is the result of a careful process, says Dumelie. "We spend a considerable amount of effort and energy ensuring that, as we attract people to our organization, we attract people who want to be part of our mission." Attracting and retaining the right people is critical for the organization, which has 15,000 physicians, employees and volunteers, given the steady population growth of increasing demands for health care as the average age of Albertans rises. "We are a large organization that is growing rapidly," says Dumelie. "Population growth, demographic shifts and the rising need for seniors care has meant that the demands for our services continue to grow."

Engagement is a well-worn buzzword among employers that are focused on issues such as employee morale, motivation and job satisfaction. Covenant Health has an established engagement program and also measures its employee engagement every two years to ensure that staff not only share and live the organization's values but see a continuing or growing role with the healthcare provider. "We spend time with our employees to make sure that we provide them the opportunity to learn and grow, contribute to our culture and also be leaders within it," says Dumelie. The organization-wide engagement program "on all accounts improves quality," says the Covenant Health chief executive. "It improves retention, it improves every dimension of the workplace. Ultimately, it benefits those that we serve." © 2015 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Illustration: • / Body, mind and soul: Covenant Health employees live its values every day - at the bedside, in decision-making and in how colleagues treat one another.

Kat Lanteigne, executive director for BloodWatch.org and writer of the play Tainted based on three-years of research about the tainted blood scandal, travelled to Alberta to help spread the message about concerns about private, donor-paid plasma collection. Lanteigne said these types of clinics had started to show up in Ontario in the last few years. "This is a big-pharma push," she said. "If they can build a clinic and get a licence from Health Canada then they can open without the province's permission." She said that the private sale and collection of blood and plasma introduces risk into the system. She also dispelled another myth that plasma is being imported into the country. She said that is not the case, as about 70 per cent of the drugs produced from plasma is what is being imported. When successful in the fight to get Ontario to legislate against private, donor-paid plasma collection at the end of 2014, and because Quebec has a similar law, Lanteigne said they made the mistake of thinking that because the largest provinces in Canada had done this, the rest of the provinces would follow suit.

Instead, as part of one of her first decisions, the new federal Liberal Health Minister approved CPR opening a clinic in Saskatchewan. Lanteigne says the Saskatchewan government, led by Premier Brad Wall, then approved the private, donor-paid plasma collection business to open in Saskatoon, "in between a pawn shop and a pay-day loan company." "This collection facility is a blood broker. They are literally a middle man Ñ a source to get profits. "We're asking the provinces and territories to pass voluntary blood donation acts which adds blood and plasma to their existing human tissue acts ..." Lanteigne explained. There is a lot of information on the BloodWatch.org website about the issue, including an informative timeline. The organization also has a Heart Watch rating system. Alberta currently has three hearts and Lanteigne would like to see that increase to five. "Saskatchewan has broken our hearts," she adds.

Kim Storebo, CUPE Local 46 president who works with Canadian Blood Services (CBS), also spoke at the event. She said CUPE supports a public, voluntary-based blood system in Canada, adding CBS needs to increase the number of its own plasma collection sites. The organization has been slowly closing locations since 2012. "There is no evidence the collection of plasma from paid donors will create self-sufficiency," she said. "Under no circumstances should there be payment of blood plasma donors with cash or cash-in-kind equivalents." The union wants to see blood and plasma collection remain the sole responsibility of Canadian Blood Services and for the organization to expand its plasma collection and its work hours and ensure stable and consistent hours for its employees. As part of the wrap-up of the Alberta tour officials with FOM, BloodWatch.org and CUPE presented an online SumOfUs petition with more than 15,000 signatures to provincial health minister Sarah Hoffman asking for all provincial governments to "implement legislation that ensures no for-profit, donor-paid blood plasma collection clinics are allowed to operate in Canada." Azocar assured those at the meetings that Friends of Medicare would continue to lobby the Alberta government this fall and next spring during the Legislature sittings.

That's because home care needs a leader who cares deeply about a system that for too long has seen patients struggle to receive basic services they deserve, suffer when their therapy sessions or personal support visits are cut off or reduced, or who are sent home from hospitals with false promises of services to come to their door. "We know from the feedback that we have received from literally thousands of individuals and families that the care that they are currently receiving is patchy, uneven and fragmented," Hoskins admitted last week. It was just six months ago that Hoskins was refusing even to acknowledge that any patients had their services terminated or reduced because of cutbacks by Community Care Access Centres, which oversee home- and community-care services. In fact, those cuts affected thousand of sick and elderly patients across the province.

The most important step was taken by Hoskins when he adopted a new attitude toward home care, a key part of the overall health-care system that has suffered for years from severe underfunding, political neglect and too much bureaucracy. Indeed, Hoskins could actually become the new home-care champion.

First, Hoskins should radically reform the overall bureaucratic structure of home and community care. Gail Donner, former dean of nursing at the University of Toronto who headed a recent government-appointed panel on home care, has called the issue of structure "the elephant in the room" when it comes to poor delivery and co-ordination of services to patients. The most obvious starting point is the 14 CCACs across Ontario. These government agencies, which are filled with many hard-working and dedicated staffers, have been rightly criticized as being too bureaucratic, inefficient and top heavy with high-paid executives. Hoskins said last week he will wait until Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk releases two reports on CCACs before making any moves. The first report looking into CCACs' financial operations, which was requested by an Ontario all-party legislative committee in March 2014, was to have been ready this spring. It now won't be ready until late fall. The second report, which will look into other aspects of home care, will be included in the auditor general's annual report, tentatively set for early December.

Second, Hoskins should demand more money for rehab services, such as physiotherapy and speech-language pathology. This growing area of need has been effectively gutted over the years in the name of cost-saving, with patients getting as few as two visits from front-line health professionals after being sent home from hospitals. At the same time, hospitals have closed in-patient and outpatient rehab clinics, forcing patients to fight for limited home-care services or pay privately. Third, Hoskins should reverse a unilateral decision by CCACs that forbids charitable non-profit home-care organizations to fundraise among former clients.

Such a move would open the door for not-for-profit organizations to provide vital home-care services that are not now being met or are being under-delivered by CCACs. Low-income and aboriginal groups would be among those most likely to benefit from such a move. If non-profit hospitals can fundraise among former patients, it seems logical that not-for-profit home-care organizations should be allowed to do the same thing. Home-care patients can draw some encouragement from Hoskins' small steps forward. But now is the time for bolder steps that will make a real difference in the lives of patients and caregivers around the province. Bob Hepburn's column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca.

Valeant CEO Michael Pearson says the latest results demonstrate the company's ability to grow without acquisitions by boosting its guidance for 2015 after reporting their fourth consecutive quarter of greater than 15 per cent organic growth. "Our M&A strategy will always be a question of tuck-ins or bolt-ons, and opportunistically larger acquisitions. One can never predict the timing of a larger acquisition so when those happen, those happen," said Valeant CEO Michael Pearson on a conference call Thursday. "We don't put them on a timeline."

Valeant released its second-quarter results on Thursday, increasing its 2015 revenue outlook from a range of $10.4-billion to $10.6 billion up to a range of $10.7-billion to $11.1 billion. In the latest quarter, Valeant said organic growth was up 19 per cent on a same-store sales basis, driven by its dermatology, gastrointestinal, contact lenses and dental businesses. Pearson has said he is certain organic growth will continue in the doubledigits at least until the end of 2016. "I think they will continue to see a higher organic growth than they have in the past, but can they sustain that 19 per cent? That's probably one of the high marks," said Stephanie Price, an analyst at CIBC World Markets.

The company reported a total revenue of $2.7 billion in the quarter, an increase of 34 per cent over last year and $200 million over the first quarter outlook. Pearson said the results were driven by strong performances in the U.S. market, as well as sales in Asia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East and North Africa. Valeant did take a $173-million hit from the negative impact of foreign exchange in the second quarter. The company completed its $11.1-billion acquisition of Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. earlier this year, which contributed $313 million in revenue. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Salix's irritable bowel syndrome drug, Xifaxan, in May. Prior to the acquisition, Salix had issues with an inventory pileup, though Pearson says levels have been reduced from four to five months, to three months to 3.5 months. The company laid off 258 Salix employees in April as part of a $500-million cost-savings plan which Pearson said will reach $530 million by the end of the year.

Valeant has made cuts to sales staff following previous acquisitions, though this is not the case with Salix where the team remains largely intact as the company awaits regulatory approval for its direct-to-customer advertising campaign. A serial acquisitor, last week Valeant said it will buy Amoun, a major Egyptian pharmaceutical company, for about US$800 million as a platform for further expansion in the Middle East and North Africa.

Pearson says so far the company has signed eight tuck-in deals this year and says Valeant is looking for opportunities to grow in Latin America. "I think there are a lot of smaller guys out there they can continue to consolidate, so we're not worried about a lack of targets," said Price. "At the high end there is a limit to the number of large acquisitions out there, but I don't think we're anywhere near that limit right now." Financial Post, with files from Bloomberg News DvanderLinde@nationalpost.com

The member of the scheduling team responsible for that work unit would receive the request along with a list of employees that have the skill-sets and availability to work in that vacationing staffer's place. "They assign that work according to the various union collective agreements," he said. However, if the matter is unfolding in a shorter period of time, such as if someone was calling in sick for a shift scheduled to start later today, there's a different protocol. "Obviously that needs more immediate attention. There's an actual telephone call from a manager or a supervisor at (the unit) to a dedicated line in the scheduling centre," he said. Together, the employee's manager would work with the scheduling team to sort out the appropriate person to be offered the shift. Why is Horizon making this change? The goal is to lighten the administrative load on health-care managers across the province so they can focus on the day-to-day delivery of care.

"We're taking that sort of task or transaction work out of the nursing units. Typically, it's done by ward clerks or, in many cases, the managers themselves. It consumes a lot of their time. But that's only part of their job. They have responsibilities for other operational requirements in their various units," he said. Doull said the health authority also sees value in managing schedules in a consistent way across the province. "What we want to do for all of the areas is standardize the processes and the application of the collective agreement rules. So instead of having (more than) 200 people in Horizon who have as some small part of their job (tried) to get by in doing scheduling work as best they can with no formal software support or training, we're going to bring that into a purpose-built department," he said. "And there are efficiency payoffs for that, both financial and operational, for us as an organization." He did acknowledge that there will still be room for personal interventions by managers, particularly if a quick conversation at the office door can resolve a pressing matter easily and effectively.

If a matter is of an urgent nature, the employee can contact their manager or appointed supervisor directly and have a conversation about the request for time off and the manager can figure out a specific way to handle the situation. "All the manager is going to do is simply call the centre in Saint John, or email the staffing team that they work with, and say, 'An employee has talked to me. This is what we're going to do and here's how I want you to deal with the shift on Saturday,'" he said. "The manager always has that direct-line option to deal with things that are of a more timely nature." Although, too much of that can be a problem, said Doull, explaining that in some units across the province managers can fall into routines where the easiest employee to reach, or the most willing employee to work, receives most of the overtime or sick-time shift offers. "Later on, one of the four or five people (ahead of the preferred employee) may very well come back and say, 'I have a grievance because I should have been offered that shift. What are you going to do for me?' And we may be in a situation of having to, in effect, pay twice for time that needs to be worked," he said.

"I wouldn't characterize it that it happens often, but it certainly happens often enough that we know about it and it's one of the problems that we're specifically trying to solve." Members of the scheduling team are working to determine which site will be the next to adopt this new staffing system. Ultimately, when the scheduling team is fully operational and slotting shifts for units across Horizon, a team of 21 staff members will be working at the Saint John centre between the hours of 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. "That's roughly 70 full-time equivalent (positions for our team)," he said.

Doull said he knows many employees are likely worried about this change, but the move is expected to create significant savings for Horizon. "What we're looking to do is return time to managers and clinical staff," he said. "We know patients have a better experience if they know who the manager is in their area and they're able to interact with them regularly ... We know staff are more satisfied at work if they're able to have access to their manager." There are also savings expected through reductions in payroll errors.

"If someone puts in the wrong code for a specific number of hours and an employee gets paid the wrong thing, we know how often we're going back and correcting these. What this system will do is take a lot of the manual data entry of our pay processes away," he said. "It'll be automated and driven by what the employee is scheduled to work." It should also help to highlight problems in specific units, he said. "If we have an area, for example, that is using a lot of overtime, we'll know who is not there, why they're not there, which positions are not actually filled because there's nobody to work them, and we'll be better able as an organization to identify where our recruiting issues are," he said.

Ralph McBride, CUPE Local 1252's provincial co-ordinator, said he's concerned about the economic impacts the move could have on communities across the province. "We're not overly impressed with centralizing services. We see this as taking away important jobs in rural New Brunswick and moving them to urban centres," he said. "We think there are economic hard times happening currently in the Miramichi. This won't help." There are no plans to integrate this system with scheduling protocols used by the Vitalité Health Network. The Daily Gleaner requested information from the Vitalité Health Network on how the province's other regional health authority schedules its staff and the paper is still waiting for a response.

An alliance of Canadians from coast to coast to coast is taking up that question, launching a homegrown initiative that day to promote a healthy environment for debate, dissent, diversity, and democracy in Canada.

In Zimbabwe, Honduras, China, and too many other countries the risks for those who speak out are huge. Freedom of expression and freedom of association are under attack. Human rights defenders are targeted.

Given this bleak backdrop, some might suggest we have little to complain about in Canada. But the past dismal decade is a sober reminder there’s no cause for complacency. On the contrary, citizens and organizations critical of the government were dismissed, dismantled, defamed, and defunded. Officers of Parliament were silenced as were scientists and public servants. Access to evidence was severely constrained and dissent increasingly criminalized.

If you were from an indigenous community or a Muslim or a climate activist, you were all the more vulnerable to drive-by smears—or worse.

Transformative change is required to our laws, institutions, priorities, and political culture. Respect for human rights—both charter rights and Canada’s international obligations—must serve as the bedrock upon which all policies and programs are founded. And the vital role of civil society organizations in informing public opinion, shaping public policy, and generating political will must be respected and promoted.

This is particularly true for groups that represent marginalized constituencies including women, racialized peoples and others who have borne the brunt of cuts, attacks, and discrimination. Critically, the Canadian government must build a new relationship with indigenous peoples based on rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership.

Parliamentary accountability must be strengthened, ending omnibus bills and improving oversight and independent review. Citizens must have ready access to information, including all publicly funded research. And public servants must be encouraged to provide independent advice based on evidence and respect for the constitution and human rights. The agenda for action is ambitious but vital if we are to have a healthy enabling environment for a flourishing Canadian democracy.

It’s also a living document. The public, parliamentarians, pundits, and public interest groups are all encouraged to contribute their ideas and to join in securing the essential reforms we so urgently need. In its first six months, we’ve seen encouraging signals the government is following through on commitments to increase transparency and accountability. Renewed funding for the Court Challenges program, for example, is a welcome show of good faith.

But we’ve also seen troubling lapses where human rights have taken a back seat and alternative views have been censured, in particular in relation to the Middle East. And there are major files that remain open, including replacing Bill C-51 with legislation that respects rights and complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The signal we send and the example we set for advocates of freedom of expression and association around the world are critical if the phrase “Canada’s back” is to have any substance and sunny ways are to prevail—let alone if we are to reinforce these rights so they are stronger here than ever before. There is no better time for bold action to bolster respect for rights and civic engagement than now. Robert Fox is a founding member of the Voices Coalition and a long-time social justice activist.

ONE MILLION GOOD JOBS

A national climate strategy holds incredible potential for the labour movement. That's why the Canadian Labour Congress teamed up with a number of environmental organizations and First Nations to deliver a proposal to the prime minister in advance of the Vancouver meeting. The proposal, called "One Million Climate Jobs," presents a plan to address poverty and tackle climate change by creating jobs.

EXTREME FIRES, VIABLE ALTERNATIVES In May, Canada experienced one of the worst natural disasters our country has ever seen. The devastating wild fire

Yet most premiers are still intent on developing fossil fuel projects and Trudeau still trumpets pipelines.

A number of recent reports, including a landmark study by a global team of researchers at Stanford University, have demonstrated that Canada could switch to renewables by 2030. Indeed, renewable energy sources are already powerful and efficient enough to be a viable alternative.

Environmental groups and the Canadian Labour Congress have called for an end to fossil fuels by 2050. The extra 20 years provides a realistic timeline that also allows Canada to retrain workers as it gradually shuts down all oil, coal and natural gas projects.

The rate of unionization of all workers has been falling for decades. In 1982, it was 38 per cent. In 2014, it reached an historic low of 28 per cent. That downward trend will continue unless unions find ways to organize new sectors of workers.

Iron and Earth, a non-profit organization led by oil sands workers, plans to retrain over 1,000 oil and gas electricians in solar installation within three years.

Days of Action Rallies at senior government Ministers’ offices