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January 24, 2012 - No. 5
Albertans Fight for Their Rights and the
Rights of All
Economy
• Electricity Review Exposes How Albertans Are
Forced to Pay for Outrageous Pay-the-Rich Schemes - Peggy
Morton
Health Care
• Health Care Workers Overwhelmingly Reject
Mediator's Report - Peggy Askin
• Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians
Demand Improved Response Times and Working Conditions
Education
• New Education Act Undermines Right to
Education - Kevan Hunter
• Cuts to University Funding Further Open the
Door to Monopoly Control -
Dougal MacDonald
Announcement
• Attempts to Scapegoat Public Sector Workers
Economy
Electricity Review Exposes How Albertans Are Forced to
Pay for Outrageous Pay-the-Rich Schemes
- Peggy Morton -
The Critical Transmission Review Committee (CTRC) began
"public" hearings on January 10 in Calgary. Alberta Premier Alison
Redford appointed the committee to conduct a review of plans for two
high-voltage transmission lines between Edmonton and Calgary. The
committee will hear submissions by invitation
only and report to Energy Minister Ted Morton by February 10. Those
invited include power companies, municipalities, universities,
associations representing power users and business interests. Several
organizations formed to oppose the building of the lines were also
issued invitations.
The transmission lines were approved by the cabinet
following the passage of the Electric Statutes Amendment Act
in 2009. The Act permits cabinet approval of any electrical
transmission project deemed as "critical transmission infrastructure"
without conducting public hearings. Four projects were
identified as critical: two lines from Edmonton to Calgary, a line from
Edmonton to the Heartland area near Fort Saskatchewan, and twin lines
from Edmonton to Fort McMurray.
The Alberta government says that the provisions of the
Act are no different than the government approving other publicly
needed infrastructure such as highways, schools and hospitals. In other
words the government is saying that the transmission lines are a
necessary public service which the government
is duty-bound to provide. But the fact is that these lines are not
required to provide power to users in Alberta, even though they will
have to bear the entire cost. They are being built to enrich two
monopolies who own the lines, AltaLink (owned by SNC Lavalin) and ATCO
and to provide the infrastructure to permit
the energy monopolies operating in the oilsands to export electricity
produced through co-generation to the U.S. In this mother of all
pay-the-rich schemes, AltaLink and ATCO are not only given the
exclusive right to build transmission lines but to charge whatever they
deem to be the cost to the users of electricity
in Alberta.
 The committee hearings have
revealed what was behind the
move to restructure the state to permit direct approval of such lines
without examination of the proposal by the Alberta Utilities
Commission. The Act pushed four major transmission projects worth an
estimated $5.2 billion through the approval phase
without public hearings. This $5.2 billion will be paid through the
power bills of industrial, commercial, public, residential and farm
users of electricity.
Submissions to the committee point out that there is no
evidence that these lines are needed to meet the need for power in
Alberta. It is a pay-the-rich scheme where ATCO and AltaLink are given
the right to build new transmission lines with no competitive bidding,
no oversight of costs, free rein to decide
what technology to use and an all-round free lunch for these monopolies
at
the expense of industrial, commercial, public, farm and residential
users.
This decision is being vigorously opposed by the
organization representing industrial power users in Alberta. Sheldon
Fulton of the Calgary-based Industrial Power Consumers Association of
Alberta (IPCAA) argued that the lines
are not needed at this time but will place a big burden on those
industries that do not generate their own power.
The IPCAA also argues that this is a costly over-build
of the
transmission system. The association which is a coalition of 20
industries that consume 35 per cent of the province's power says
electricity prices will go through the roof and drive businesses out
of the province. It points out that the largest industrial users will
decide to generate their own electricity, putting the burden of paying
for these lines on the residential users, farmers, small businesses and
smaller manufacturing and industrial users.
The fact that these lines are using a more costly
technology which provides no benefit unless the intention is to export
power was also brought out at the hearings. Direct current (DC)
technology would normally be used only in lines longer than 500 km
and all the proposed transmission lines are less than 500
kms. Export to the U.S. would provide a market for the oil giants
operating in the oilsands to export electricity from co-generation.
Graph showing
increase in Alberta electricity prices from October 2010 to January
2012 (click to enlarge). (IPCAA)
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The huge spike in the cost of electricity in Alberta
during January resulted in production being shut down in several
industries. AltaSteel in Edmonton produced no steel for two days in the
third week of January, stating that it was uneconomic to operate when
the price per kilowatt hour hits a certain threshold.
Industrial, commercial and public sector users who account for nearly
85 per cent of demand for electricity in the province are metered
hourly. Alberta Newsprint Co. in Whitecourt also reported that it had
ceased production from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm on two days.
The facts brought out in the hearings show that the
restructuring of the state in Alberta is taking place to impose the
dictate of the most powerful monopolies at the expense of the whole
society. Bill 50 permitted the government to approve AltaLink and
ATCO's schemes without any public scrutiny or accountability.
The facts show that these schemes benefit only the powerful monopolies,
those involved in electrical transmission as well as the monopolies in
the oilsands, who in turn will serve the U.S. war machine and
ever-increasing demand for energy resources. It directly threatens
Alberta's manufacturing industry which has
not recovered from the large loss of jobs in 2008. It imposes a huge
burden on the working people, will further destabilize the farming
communities and transfers more of the wealth created by the working
class into the hands of the rich.
"Who decides?" is a crucial question. The Alberta
government has put these decisions in the hands of the executive which
imposes monopoly dictate. The representatives of the industrial sector
argue that it should be left to the "market." The Workers' Opposition
stands firmly for the right of Canadians to decide.
Electricity is an essential public service and it should be publicly
owned and controlled.
Health Care
Health Care Workers Overwhelmingly Reject
Mediator's Report
- Peggy Askin -
 
The ballots for the vote
on the mediator's report were counted January 17, 2012 (left) and the
overwhelming
results to reject the report were presented January 18, 2012. (AUPE)
Alberta health care workers represented by the Alberta
Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) soundly rejected a mediator's
report issued after eight months of negotiations. The workers, employed
in General Support Services (GSS) for Alberta Health Services (AHS)
rejected the mediator's recommendations
by 95 per cent. The results of the vote were announced on January 18,
2012. There are 22,000 GSS workers working in hospitals across the
province who as AUPE explains "fight superbugs, manage health records,
prepare meals, manage finances, maintain facilities, assist in therapy,
sterilize surgical instruments,
assist pharmacists, provide security and much more." Following the
vote, AHS agreed to resume negotiations, sometime in early February.
In the face of these attacks, health care workers are
upholding their right to determine wages and working conditions
acceptable to themselves. Health care workers have every right to fight
for wages commensurate with the important services they provide and to
reject a settlement which amounts to a wage cut
because it does not even meet the cost of inflation. Health care
workers
are still trying to deal with concerns that remain outstanding since
the Alberta government imposed Bill 27 in 2003 which forced the
amalgamation of bargaining units in each health region. The creation of
one health superboard in 2009 resulted
in more forced amalgamations. Workers lost working conditions they
fought for and established over the years, and are demanding that their
concerns be addressed. Another issue is the situation facing workers in
Fort McMurray and other northern communities who face extremely high
costs for housing, food and
other necessities. How can they be expected to survive in these
communities without recognizing this fact and providing a suitable
northern allowance?
GSS workers are fighting to maintain the equilibrium in
labour relations where there is a recognition of the rights of workers
to determine their working conditions. They are fighting for more say
on scheduling that impacts their quality of life and ability to provide
care. They are also fighting for more full-time staffing as workers in
this sector work on average
only 23 hours per week. Instead of addressing these concerns, the
mediator recommended increased "flexibility."
A workforce engagement survey conducted by AHS in 2010
showed that just 35 per cent of respondents reported they were
favourably engaged at work, less than half the national benchmark of 76
per cent. As AUPE pointed out: "What's been proposed by the mediator
is dangerous to the well-being of Alberta's
already fractured health care system." The overwhelming rejection of
this mediator's report is a collective response by health care workers
which shows their spirit of resistance and demand for the dignity that
the essential and humane service they perform deserves.
Negotiations are expected to resume at the same time
that the spring session of the Alberta legislature will begin and the
Redford government brings down the budget. In preparation for the
budget, an increasingly raucous chorus orchestrated by the rich -- the
finance capitalists -- is calling for stepped-up assaults on
the wages and working conditions of public sector workers. For example
on January 20, the Calgary Herald claimed that a new study
from the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy shows
"astonishing growth in Alberta's public sector wages and salaries."
According to the study, public sector
workers are to be blamed for Alberta's deficit. Many health care
workers will remember that this kind of disinformation was launched in
the 1990s about the so-called astonishing growth in health care
spending and the need to cut social programs to eliminate the deficit.
This big-lie technique was used to justify
the anti-social offensive and launch an all-out attack on social
programs and the workers who provide them. The motive is the same
today, carried out with the same cynical aim of justifying what cannot
be justified.
The aim of this disinformation is to make health care
and other public sector workers the target, stop an informed discussion
and pave the way to privatize services and hand them over to the rich.
Departments like the Calgary School of Policy Studies which upholds
monopoly right provide no information on
pay-the-rich schemes where billions of dollars are handed over to the
monopolies in various ways. These monopolies are claiming an increasing
amount of the wealth produced by the working people while contributing
a smaller and smaller share of the wealth claimed by governments for
social programs. The attacks
on public sector workers are designed not to "reduce the deficit" or
"save money" or anything of the kind. They are intended to withdraw
funding from social programs and put it in the service of expanding
private capital. Whatever has to be wrecked in the process, in their
view is just collateral damage.
In defending their right to the conditions they require
in order to do their work, the GSS workers are defending public right
against these obscene demands of the monopolies.
Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians Demand
Improved Response Times and
Working Conditions
 Edmonton Paramedics and
Emergency Medical Technicians
(EMTs) are speaking out about the lack of resources and available
ambulances to respond to the medical needs of Albertans. Alberta Health
Services (AHS) took control of all ambulance services in 2009. Prior to
2009 ambulance services were managed
by the municipalities. Since AHS assumed control, wait times have
increased and service has deteriorated. Average response times in
Edmonton have increased more than one minute, a minute which can be
critical to a patient's survival.
Edmonton EMTs and paramedics have been speaking out to
the media to highlight the critical situation. In some cases patients,
particularly in Edmonton are waiting hours for an ambulance. Several
times every day no ambulances are available. When this takes place,
ambulances are called in from surrounding
areas, leaving these communities with no available ambulances.
The ambulance workers have identified two problems which
are contributing to this crisis. The first is that there are not enough
ambulances on the streets. Despite a growing population, AHS has closed
two Edmonton stations and downgraded another. Second, ambulances and
their staff are often tied up for hours
in emergency departments where patients lie on stretchers in the
hallways waiting for an available emergency space to open up. This
situation is caused by the lack of inpatient hospital beds.
The Edmonton paramedics and EMTs provided information
for a survey conducted by their union, the Health Sciences Association
of Alberta (HSAA) in early November. The survey found that in the last
four shifts completed by paramedics and EMTs, 86 per cent had
experienced a lack of resources, including
a "red alert" which means no ambulances available for emergency calls.
Seventy-two per cent of respondents said they could not meet their
response time targets three or more times and 72 per cent had pending
calls of more than one hour, sometimes up to four times in a shift.
A similar situation exists in many communities across
the province. Response times for an ambulance to arrive at the scene
after a 911 call have grown each year. In 2010 the Calgary Herald
reported that the ambulance service failed to meet its target response
times 40 per cent of the time, and
that red alerts where no ambulances were available anywhere in the city
lasted as long as 18 minutes.
Not only are patients put at risk, but the workers are
also suffering from the high stress and overwork they experience.
Workers reported unacceptable working conditions such as being unable
to even take time for a lunch break. Paramedics already experience very
stressful situations and must make the right decision
without delay as first responders in accidents, trauma and
life-threatening illness. More than two-thirds of the workers who
responded to the survey said they were considering leaving Alberta to
seek work elsewhere because of the toll their working conditions were
taking on their mental and physical health.
The responsibility for this situation lies squarely with
AHS and the Alberta government. The EMTs and paramedics face not only
the stress of working without the necessary resources, but also the
intransigence of AHS which continues to treat the crisis as a public
relations issue, not a question of the government's
social responsibility towards people in need of emergency response and
transport.
HSAA President Elisabeth Ballerman held discussions with
Minister of Health Fred Horne, on January 10 regarding this grave
situation. Both Horne and the CEO of AHS have responded with statements
that they recognize there is a problem. But their responses reveal that
both the government and AHS treats
patients in need of emergency first response and transfer as statistics
and costs to be measured for their budgets. This capital-centred
approach is at odds with the need for a human-centred health care
system which would not accept anything less than the ability to respond
to life threatening situations in a timely manner
100 per cent of the time.
Paramedics and EMTs are defending Albertans' right to
health care. As front-line workers they see the consequences of the
failure to provide needed resources and deterioration of their own
working conditions for the health and lives of Albertans. By speaking
out to their union and to AHS the paramedics and
EMTs are fighting for working conditions that will allow them to
provide the critical service they provide.
Education
New Education Act Undermines Right to Education
- Kevan Hunter -
 The Alberta government
recently concluded a new round of
consultations on education, asking people what they would like to see
in the new Education Act. A new Act is expected to be tabled
in the spring, following the election. The latest round of
consultations, held between November 26, 2011
and January 8, 2012, involved seven forums attended by 1,110
individuals. This will be the first time the legislation has been
updated since 1988.
By law, an election must take place some time between
March 1 and May 31 of this year. In the meantime, Alberta's Minister of
Education, Thomas Lukaszuk, presented Albertans with a "10 point plan"
for education, claiming: "the Government's commitment to revised
legislation and this 10 point plan will make
a real difference for students today and in the future."
Noticeably absent from Lukaszuk's plan is any mention of
the right to an education, or any concrete measures by which
this right can be provided with a guarantee.
Instead, Albertans are met with what has been described
as a "values-based" approach where the Act itself has almost no
substance and the real content is in the regulations that the
government passes in council to implement the provisions of the Act. As
the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Regulations are
written by the Premier and the cabinet and do not need to be discussed,
debated or approved by the legislature. This makes the process of
"consultation" a complete sham. When governments govern through
regulations, they become an elected dictatorship.
For years, teachers and those who work in education have
been raising very concrete problems which must be addressed. These
include the need for more support for special needs, full day
Kindergarten, an end to standardized Provincial Achievement Tests and
an end to charter schools which threaten the vitality
of public education. Instead of taking concrete action to address these
issues, the 10 point plan announces another review of Provincial
Achievement Tests and Full Day Kindergarten. Nothing is said about
students with special needs or students for whom English is a second
language.
Rather than reverse the closure of rural schools in
recent years, which has given rise to bus rides in excess of an hour in
each direction for some students, the government proposes an absurd
plan to provide wireless internet access on school buses. If the
"solution" proposed to the problems created by school closures,
is that students can log onto the internet and do their school work
while they sit on the bus, it begs the question why send students to
school at all?
Lukaszuk speaks of giving parents a greater role. What
does he mean by this? Certainly not that the demands of parents for
smaller class sizes, more resources such as books in the libraries, and
supports for students with special needs, will be addressed. With
respect to charter schools, the government states that
it wants to reduce the "administrative burden for established,
effective charter schools." Taken together, these two points suggest a
hidden agenda. A common euphemism for private and charter schools is
"school choice," with the weakening of the public system being promoted
on the basis that it gives parents a
"choice" of the kind of education their children receive. Charter
schools recruit some students from the public system while excluding
others. Teachers at charter schools are excluded from active membership
in their union, the Alberta Teachers' Association. Unlike public
schools, charter schools are not governed
by elected school boards.
While "accountability" is the watchword for public
schools, the same cannot be said for charter schools. The School Act
says very little about the responsibilities of existing charter
schools, except that the Minister may make regulations. The relevant
regulations say that charter schools must be evaluated once
in the term of the charter which can be up to five years in length, and
that they demonstrate to the Minister that they are successful. Why
does the minister want more accountability from public schools and less
for charter schools?
All of this suggests an agenda to allow for permanent
certification for charter schools. Once a charter school is declared to
be "established and effective," it could become permanent and no longer
be subject to the same evaluation process. Reducing the "burden" of
regularly proving a charter school's success
would no doubt result in the further proliferation of charter schools.
The consultation process is intended to give the
impression that Albertans are being listened to and their views
considered, which is clearly not the case.
It is not just a matter that none of the substantive
problems facing educators and students are addressed, which in itself
is a very serious problem.
People want real decision-making power in their hands
while governance today is characterized by the arbitrary use of power.
There is no force within the legislature that can hold the government
to account. It is the students, the parents, the teachers and all
those involved in education who must organize to defend
quality public education.
Cuts to University Funding Further Open the Door to
Monopoly Control
- Dougal MacDonald -
Continued provincial underfunding of education is a
direct attack on the right to education which must be provided to
everyone with a guarantee. Over the past three years, the Faculty of
Arts alone at University of Alberta has lost a total of $6.13 million
through budget cuts, due to provincial underfunding. A
further arts budget cut of approximately 2 per cent for the 2012-13
year is
anticipated. The burden of repeated underfunding is being shifted onto
the backs of staff, students and faculty, negatively affecting the
quality of teaching, research and community service, and further
opening the door to increased private funding
and control of post-secondary education. Instead of demanding that the
province increase funding, the Office of the Dean of Arts hired a
private consultant to initiate a top-down process to determine where
cuts "should" be made to the Faculty of Arts in terms of staff,
programs and funding.
The Faculty of Arts Staff Solidarity (FASS), a
coalition of staff, students and faculty, has launched a campus-wide
campaign to challenge the cuts agenda. One major FASS demand is that
the university call on the provincial government to increase
educational funding and not shift the burden of provincial
cuts onto the backs of the university community. As the servant of the
monopolies, the government is making funding cuts to education and
other social programs because the monopolies want to claim even more of
the added-value produced by the working class. Due to FASS pressure,
the Dean of Arts held an open
forum in December where participants discussed and questioned the cuts
agenda. Under continued pressure, the Dean's Office held another open
forum on Wednesday, January 18. Although the time was inconvenient and
the format restricted open discussion, the many participants once again
strongly demonstrated
their opposition to the cuts. FASS is continuing their campaign on
other fronts.
 A major issue brought up during
the January 18 forum was
a statement that same day in the monopoly media by the University
President
that the proposed cuts were "modest" and would not have a "negative
effect on students." This disinformation was quickly refuted in a
computing science professor's January 20
letter to the same media, wherein he gave specific facts of some
negative effects on his department alone. These include: inability to
make needed upgrades to teaching laboratories, loss of five staff
positions directly responsible for supporting teaching labs and
graduate students, movement from a 24-7 support policy
for the computing infrastructure to a business hours only policy,
reduction of creative innovations in teaching and shifting of support
staff duties to faculty. The letter concludes with the statement that
the President "either is out of touch with what's happening on campus
or is willfully ignoring the campus reality."
Another important issue raised by the January 18 forum
participants was the uneven funding and other support for different
faculties on campus. Faculties and departments which provide more
direct support to the monopolies in the form of research and so on
receive the lion's share of new buildings, new equipment
and other perks, and are generally in a state of expansion. These
faculties and departments are also most supported by the private
sector. One example is the Faculty of Engineering's Centre for Oilsands
Innovation (COSI), whose founding sponsor is Imperial Oil, the Exxon
subsidiary heavily invested in exploitation
of the Alberta oilsands. COSI is currently engaged in over 20
oilsands-related research projects. The research results will accrue
directly to Imperial Oil and other monopolies, rather than to the
people of Alberta. Clearly, cuts in provincial funding further open the
door for private control of post-secondary education
and for a greater and greater corporate say as to what social function
the university should serve. What is needed is universities that
proudly support the interests of the working class and people rather
than merely act as abject servants of the monopolies.
Announcement
Attempts to Scapegoat Public Sector Workers
Read TML Daily next week for an article on
a University of
Calgary Public Policy Department study co-authored by Ken Boessenkool
who, media reports say, "has held down a long list of jobs including
being a Harper advisor, Tory election strategist and lobbyist for
companies such as Enbridge Inc.,
Taser International, and several pharmaceutical firms."
In 2001, Boessenkool also signed what one media account
described as "the notorious firewall
letter that
raged against the policies of Jean Chretien's Liberal government."
What is clear is that with this study, a concerted
attack has begun
on public sector workers and their right to a Canadian standard of
living. The report was released January 19, three weeks before the
Alberta
legislature is to re-convene and the budget will be introduced.
TML Daily
opposes attempts to scapegoat public sector workers by
blaming them for the deficit. Across Canada this is done to attack
public sector unions so as to bring down the standard of living of the
public sector workers and pave the way for the privatization of the
public
sector and the destruction of unions. The same will be the case for
Alberta.
Albertans will recall how they fought the same strategy
in the
1990s. This will be an opportunity to make use of that
experience as they take up the fight for workers' rights all over
again in round two.
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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