United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) Local 301 held an
information walk outside the University of Alberta Hospital on July 25.
The walk was held to raise awareness about the impact that ongoing
layoffs of nurses will have on safe patient care in Alberta hospitals.
The reckless changes in staffing are yet another "austerity"
measure being imposed by governments in the service of the rich.
UNA is demanding that Alberta Health Services (AHS) stop
the cuts and
reinstate all laid off registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical
nurses (LPNs).
Edmonton,
July 25, 2013
More than 200 nurses in acute care hospitals in
Alberta have received layoff notices in the past several months. AHS is
using a new trick to disguise its ongoing
cuts to all facets of the public health system. AHS claims that they
are only "redeploying" nurses, not laying them off. Because
there are so many vacant positions, nurses may be able to find other
positions. But this does not change the fact that the number of staff
caring for patients is being cut and the proportion of highly skilled
staff drastically reduced. For example, in four affected units at the
University of Alberta Hospital and the Royal
Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, 23 RNs and four LPNs are being laid
off. They will be replaced by 16 health
care aides and two managers.
Speaking about the layoffs, UNA President Heather
Smith stated, "This is a massive reduction of frontline nursing care
and substitution with unskilled workers. In today's reality of
increased acuity and complexity it doesn't make sense to reduce nursing
staff and dilute the skill mix."
"Our concern is that AHS is not being honest with
Albertans about the effects of these position eliminations," said
Smith. "These piecemeal cuts will have a huge impact on the quality of
care that Albertans receive."
In an interview on Alberta Prime Time, UNA
Vice-President Jane Sustrik explained the crucial role registered
nurses play in bedside patient care. Their education and training
enables them to pick up on subtle changes in a patient's condition,
before a more serious problem develops. Albertans
need these skilled individuals, she stressed.
Sustrik also explained the impact on nurses who
have chosen a particular field in nursing for which they are
passionate and have honed their skills. It is not only a personal
loss, but a loss to their patients. Nurses in rural areas find
themselves uprooted from their communities.
Sustrik pointed out that AHS declared a surplus
in
its budget this year, while claiming it has to reduce the number of
staff and skill levels because it "has no money." At the same time that
it
is laying off nurses, AHS has just given five contracts to two private
home care providers, CBI Home Health Ltd. for $235,707,695
and Bayshore Healthcare Ltd. for $136,105,945. These monopolies will
seize millions of dollars of added-value created by health care workers
and professionals for their role as labour brokers. The use of funds
"recovered" through layoffs and other cuts to pay rich
privateers shows the fraudulent nature of the government's austerity
agenda.
AHS's "Workforce Transformation" is based on a
capital-centred outlook in opposition to a human-centred outlook. The
capital-centred outlook starts with the conception of patients and the
staff who provide care and services as a "cost" to the owners of
capital. It treats patient care like work on an assembly
line with the aim of assigning each "task" to the lowest-paid staff
possible. This violates all scientific assessment of the role nurses
play in patient care and lowers the level of care. A human-centred
outlook recognizes the necessity to further develop modern and humane
relations between patients and their caregivers
based on affirming the rights of all. It recognizes that health care
workers including professionals are not a cost but create added-value
to society, and does not permit this added-value to be seized as
private profit.
Tell Health Minister Fred Horne that Disappearing
Nursing Jobs Is Simply Not Acceptable!
- United Nurses of Alberta -
United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) is calling on
Albertans to tell the government that its cuts to nursing are not
acceptable. Through its campaign and website "Nurses Make a
Difference," UNA
explains this latest attack on high quality public health care:
"All across Alberta, Registered Nurse, Registered
Psychiatric Nurse and Licensed Practical Nurse jobs are disappearing as
the government of Alberta and Alberta Health Services implement
staffing changes they call 'Workforce Transformation' and the 'Clinical
Workforce Strategic Plan.' They're replacing educated
and skilled nurses, whose profession is regulated, with
non-professional and unregulated Health Care Aides.
"This contradicts all evidence of the best way to
run a safe and effective health care system. Eliminating nurses and
replacing them with non-professional aides lowers the quality of health
care and increases risks for patients.
"Alberta Health Services has also combined this
dangerous policy with offensive bargaining proposals in contract
negotiations with nurses -- at the same time as they have a
$106-million surplus in the AHS budget!
"Nurses are the key reason our health care system is safe and cost
effective -- and $106 million is enough to hire well over 1,000 more
full-time experienced Registered Nurses for a full year.
"How many nursing jobs have 'disappeared'? How many more will be
eliminated? UNA wants Alberta Health Services to tell us and all
Albertans what their intentions are, and how they will impact health
care in Alberta.
"Tell Health Minister
Fred Horne that disappearing
nursing jobs is simply not acceptable!"
The UNA's website asks Albertans to send the following
letter to Health Minister Fred Horne:
Dear Minister Horne,
I am writing you today about the changes taking
place in hospitals and other health care facilities throughout Alberta.
Because of significant staffing changes introduced by Alberta Health
Services, skilled, highly trained and regulated nurses are being
replaced by non-professional and unregulated health care aides.
Many studies have confirmed that hospitals with more Registered Nurses
provide better care. Hospitals with low nurse staffing levels tend to
have higher rates of poor patient outcomes. This is not just happening
in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, but in major surgical
hospitals. Already close to 200 nursing
jobs have been eliminated and hundreds or perhaps thousands of nurses'
jobs could be impacted.
Reliance on unregulated and non-professional staff
will result in danger and far worse health outcomes for patients, who
could be any one of us. It is really irresponsible of Alberta Health
Services and the Redford Government to allow such serious degradation
to front-line health care to go on.
I hope that you will pay attention to the warnings
of Alberta's nurses and direct Alberta Health Services not to do any
more to harm the safe, quality front-line health care Alberta's nurses
provide.
(To send a copy of the letter, go to http://nursesmakethedifference.squarespace.com)
Education Is a Right!
Increase Investments in Education!
Athabasca University Faculty and Tutors
Issue
Statement Opposing Wholesale
Conversion to Call Centre Model
- Dougal MacDonald -
The full-time faculty and part-time tutors
(contract teaching staff) at Alberta's online Athabasca University (AU)
continue to oppose the administration's ongoing attempt to turn the
university into a giant call centre. The administration's ultimate aim
is to offset provincial underfunding by laying off employees,
cutting classes and reducing salaries and wages, especially of the
tutors who do the bulk of the online teaching. Tutors currently receive
both a salary, called "block pay," based on class
enrolment, plus added pay for marking assignments and exams, which is
automatically recorded. AU wants to replace the tutor-learner model in
three of AU's four faculties with
what AU employees call the call centre model, even though the
tutor-learner model is pedagogically sound and also develops the more
personal relationships between tutors and their students which are
critical to quality education.
The call centre model, first introduced into the
AU Faculty of Business in 1998, maintains students as isolated
individuals. Individual students must contact not their tutor but a
generic call centre when they need something or have a problem and are
then redirected to whoever the call centre respondent
thinks is the appropriate person, perhaps an administrator, perhaps a
course coordinator, perhaps the tutor. The call centre model not only
eliminates the "electronic classroom" nature of the tutor-learner model
but also the block pay salaried aspect of tutor compensation, turning
everything tutors do into piecework. Under the call centre model,
tutors have no salaried wages. Instead they must keep
track of every minute they work and send a lengthy, detailed timesheet
to the payroll department every month. As part of the ongoing battle
against the call centre model, AU faculty and tutors in the Faculty of
Humanities
and Social Sciences (FHSS) issued the following statement on July 17,
2013:
Statement by Concerned Members of the Faculty of
Humanities and
Social Sciences at Athabasca University
We, the undersigned members of the FHSS, regard
the tutoring system as crucial to both student success and to the
maintenance of high academic standards for our programs. Our ability
to attract and retain students depends on our ensuring that students
receive as much encouragement and assistance as possible in improving
their critical thinking, writing, and reading skills as well as their
knowledge of the materials in particular courses. In turn, our methods
and standards of assessment need to be
unimpeachable so that students are assured that the outside world
recognizes grades awarded by Athabasca University as meaningful and
reliable.
We are, as faculty and tutors, open to
discussions about ways of altering and improving the tutor system, as
we have demonstrated in past discussions on the issue. But we insist
that pedagogical needs, not finances, must be paramount in any
restructuring of tutoring in the FHSS. We have been assured
that no changes will be imposed on our faculty, though that assurance
sits uneasily with the call of the Acting Vice President Academic at
his meeting with Athabasca University Faculty Association (AUFA) this
past April for four million dollars to be removed from the tutor
budget, an amount that he suggests could
be achieved in large part by all faculties adopting the model of
tutoring in use in the Faculty of Business, a model in which only the
professors in one course within FHSS have so far been willing to
participate. While that system may suit the needs of that faculty, we
are not convinced that it offers a useful model
for most courses offered in the FHSS. The manner in which cutbacks in
university positions occurred this past spring has also created
skepticism among teaching staff about the senior management's
interpretation of the concept of consultation on important matters.
We reject any effort to impose a particular tutor
model across the board in our faculty, either directly or indirectly
(via a withholding of funds), without the approval of our FHSS Council,
our dean, and the General Faculty Council, as well as the
representatives of students and tutors. The importance
of the tutor system to our academic credibility is of such a magnitude
that changes should occur only when there is buy-in by all the groups
involved, including FHSS faculty, FHSS tutors, Athabasca University
Students Union, Canadian Union of Public Employees,[1]
and AUFA, as
well as management. Any
effort that attempts to circumvent the established practices for
academic governance at AU is illegitimate, in our view, and we will not
cooperate in any effort to implement it. Indeed we will make every
effort to involve all faculty, tutors, and students in FHSS to block
unilaterally imposed changes by management.
Collegial, accountable governance and the
practice of open and rigorous academic deliberation are essential to
consideration of ANY teaching model change.
(Signed by 159 full
time faculty and
tutors).
Note
1. AU tutors are
organized into CUPE Local 3911.
Government of Alberta Releases Initial Report on
Teacher Workload
- Kevan Hunter -
Teachers in Alberta have been demanding action and
real solutions to the problem of workloads for many years. The large
numbers of students in each class and the increasing complexity of
educational needs in the regular program as a result of decreased
funding
to education has made it more difficult for teachers
to meet the needs of all students and provide an education at the level
needed by society. Add to this the increasing number of non-teaching
tasks required of teachers by Alberta Education and by school boards,
and a completely unsustainable situation exists, teachers say. A recent
independent study showed that
the average teacher works 60.8 hours per week.
On June 28, 2013, the government of Alberta
released its initial report on teacher workload. The report,
investigating what tasks mandated by Alberta Education can be
eliminated or modified to reduce teacher workload, was required by Bill
26, the Assurance for Students Act,
which
also legislated
teachers' wages and working conditions and criminalized strikes until
August 31, 2016.
The initial three-page report, part of an ongoing
review by Alberta Education, identified five items which can be changed
in order to benefit teachers.[1] A number of these
changes may be
welcomed by teachers. Curiously, the first change determined by the
review is to redesign the curriculum! The
report states: "Teachers will co-create a curriculum that is less dense
and content driven to provide for deep, inquiry-based classroom
learning that is cross-curricular in nature. Teachers have long been
concerned that the curriculum was too difficult to cover in the time
period provided but, more importantly, not consistent
with the transformation of teaching practice aligned to Inspiring
Education."
A great many teachers will welcome changes to
the
curriculum which favour the development of skills over the memorization
of content. Nevertheless, to put this in the context of reducing
workload is the height of absurdity. Had the Minister of Education ever
taught in a classroom, he would know
that a completely new curriculum brings more work and not less, as new
lesson plans and course materials have to be created from scratch, and
teachers often have to learn the subject matter for themselves at the
same time. Secondly, the shift to inquiry-based learning requires more
planning and preparation on the
part of teachers, as students approach the subject matter from
different angles, at different paces and in different ways. As well,
curriculum redesign is a long process, involving years of preparation,
followed by pilot testing and then the actual phase-in of the new
curriculum,
grade by grade, over a three to five year period. Curriculum
redesign is a part of the education system that has to happen
regardless.[2]
Another proposed change included as a workload
reduction is one more sleight of hand. Alberta Education will
discontinue a pilot project concerning Inclusive Education.
Discontinuing a pilot project does not reduce workload.
Several changes proposed by Alberta Education may
help to reduce unnecessary paperwork. The government has indicated it
will simplify the process for accommodations and exemptions from Grade
12 standardized tests.[3] It has committed to further
consultation to
simplify the application process
for funding for Early Childhood Services for students with severe
disabilities. Other changes involve Individualized Program Plans (IPP),
which teachers must write for students that have been identified as
having special needs. Alberta Education will provide sample templates
for IPPs with fewer sections, and possible
reductions in the number of required components. These changes will be
welcomed, particularly by teachers in administrative roles who are
responsible for said paperwork.
These are extremely modest changes. In no way do
they compensate for cuts to funding or significantly impact workload.
Increased funding is needed to reduce teacher workload and provide
education at the level society demands. More teachers will need to be
hired, more schools built and more resources
provided for those schools.
Only in a topsy-turvy fantasy world can a new
curriculum be equated with a reduced workload. In fact, one of the
reasons teachers need their workloads addressed is so that
they have the capacity to teach in a new way. It appears Alberta
Education is operating on the basis of business as
usual. This is an authority which is out of step with the conditions of
life.
The Redford government says that Albertans must
submit to authority and that there is no alternative to austerity. Even
as society requires education to be raised to a higher level, funding
is slashed and the public education system subjected to death by a
thousand cuts. Whatever private interests dictate
goes, while the authority refuses to act to carry out its
responsibilities and defend the public interest. The energy monopolies
together with the banks and other monopolies with whom they are merged
demand an ever-increasing claim on the wealth which the working class
produces, including the added-value created
by teachers and other educational workers. Faced with this
unsustainable situation, teachers are not about to be pacified by such
a crude attempt by the government to claim it has addressed teachers'
concerns and the
needs of students.
Notes
1. The full report is
available here.
2. The last changes to
the English Language Arts
curriculum were in 2000. Social Studies was updated from 2005-2007.
Elementary Science has not been updated since 1996, while most high
school science courses were updated in 2005 and Junior High in 2009.
New Math was phased in from 2008-2012. Most
Fine Arts courses have not been updated since the 1980s.
3. A separate
announcement promised to eliminate
the existing standardized tests in Grades 3, 6 and 9, but the
government has indicated that they will be replaced with something
else.
Defend the Rights of
Workers! Uphold the Rights of All!
Solidarity with the Fired Correctional Workers
- Peggy Askin -
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE)
Local 003 hosted a barbeque at the Edmonton Remand Centre on July 22.
The barbeque was organized to support the three workers from the Fort
Saskatchewan facility who have been terminated as a result of the
wildcat strike which took place in April. AUPE
is grieving the dismissals.
The barbeque was attended by Local 003 members,
workers from other AUPE locals and others who came to show their
support and to take a stand against the Redford government's acts of
revenge. The three workers were fired despite public assurances from
the Premier and other members of the Cabinet that
there would be no acts of retribution against individual workers.
The Redford government is engaged in a
witch-hunt
where it is piling up charges against the union in an effort to cause
financial difficulties so as to prevent it from defending its
members. In addition to fines of $350,000 already levied against the
union and paid, the government is demanding that AUPE
be forced to pay the wages of police who staffed the prisons during the
wildcat. The government has claimed that these costs exceeded $1.2
million per day, a huge sum which does not take into consideration
that workers who were on strike were not paid for five days. The
government provoked the strike by refusing to address the serious
concerns raised by the union on behalf
of the workers about safety in the remand centre. It has yet to deal
with these concerns and instead wants to punish the workers by stealing
their dues. The government is also seeking to stop deducting dues for
all of AUPE's government services sector for a period of six months.
This provision of the Alberta
Labour Code has been used in the past against individual locals who
took part in an "illegal" strike but now the government wants to go
farther and stop collecting dues for all of the 22,000 government
services members.
TML spoke with Local 003
President Clarke McChesney during the picket. He emphasized that the
government witch-hunt is not having its intended
effect to intimidate or discourage Local 003 or AUPE. The wildcat
strike was held to draw attention to very serious health and
safety concerns, virtually none of which has yet been addressed. The
union is receptive to moving forward to address issues concerning
health and safety and workload through their collective agreement. But
the relationship is fractured and the government continues with its
adversarial approach instead of working
to actually solve problems. He stressed that AUPE will continue to keep
up momentum on these issues.
McChesney and AUPE Vice-President Susan Slade
told TML
that the workers in the
correctional facilities had received unprecedented support. The entire
Alberta Federation of Labour Convention rallied at the Labour Board to
show their support. Unions from across Alberta and Canada expressed
their support and messages came from as far away as Korea, Australia
and Scotland.
Clearly the Redford government is out of touch
with reality in thinking its revenge-seeking and attempts at
intimidation will silence
workers in Alberta. TML joins with all other
justice-minded people in demanding the immediate reinstatement of the
three correctional officers and the restitution of all funds taken from
the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
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Marxist-Leninist
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
