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March 27, 2020
Workers Report from the Provinces
  
Alberta
• The Reversal of All
Privatization Schemes Is in Order -
Peggy Morton
New
Brunswick
• Workers
Locked
Out Despite Emergency
• Unacceptable
Anti-Worker Actions of Ruling Elites -
Pierre Chénier
Nova Scotia
• Situation Underscores
the Necessity for the Leadership and Voice of
the Working People at All Times - K.C.
Adams
• Dealing with Issues
Facing Public and Private Sector Workers
- Jason MacLean
Alberta
- Peggy Morton -
Across the country, labs with facilities to
test for COVID-19 are overwhelmed. Both the
speed of results and the scope of testing are
far below what is needed, as recommended by the
World Health Organization (WHO) and proven
effective in countries like China, south Korea
and Singapore. This is the case right across
Canada and shows the need for significant
expansion of public health laboratories.
 Instead
of expanding and further developing the
potential of the public labs, the United
Conservative Party (UCP) government in Alberta
is intent on handing them over to private
interests, almost certainly a global laboratory
monopoly. This is not evident behind the talk of
Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr.
Deena Hinshaw who has given high praise to the
staff of the public medical lab system in
Alberta, Precision Labs, crediting the public
labs for the fact that Alberta had completed
more COVID-19 tests than any other province.
"That's been possible due to existing
infrastructure, the early availability of
testing kits, collaboration with universities
and a testing process that runs around the
clock," Dr. Hinshaw said. She further stated,
"One of the advantages we have in Alberta is our
provincial lab for public health, which is in
the Alberta Precision Laboratories." All
COVID-19 related tests have been sent to the
public provincial labs for analysis.
The UCP halted construction and cancelled the
new public medical "superlab" in Edmonton
immediately on coming to power in 2019, despite
the clear evidence of the need for the facility.
The Edmonton "superlab" would have extended
public control across Alberta.
Then in November 2019, the Health Sciences
Association of Alberta (HSAA) was served notice
by Alberta Precision Labs, which is owned by
Alberta Health Services, that it "is seeking
interest from private third-parties to take over
parts of lab services in Alberta."
This would affect 850 full-time equivalent
positions (FTEs), HSAA informed. Thousands of
support staff in environmental services
(cleaning), food services and laundry are also
threatened with the loss
of their jobs to contracting out. Alberta Health
Services has also given notice to the United
Nurses of Alberta (UNA) that it intends to lay
off hundreds of nurses, and notified HSAA that
it is considering
privatizing ambulance services across Alberta.
 HSAA
President Mike Parker told Workers' Forum
that "when you lose control of your public
sector health care and need to 'negotiate'
increased or additional services, it impacts
care. I will reference the current situation in
the U.S. where hospitals are negotiating for
increased compensation to continue treatment."
This has been clearly demonstrated in Alberta.
All labs including hospital labs, with one
exception at the University of Alberta Hospital,
were privatized in 1997. The 1997 privatization
of hospital labs was later quietly reversed by
the Canada Health Act, and the lab
system serving Calgary and southern Alberta
returned to the control of Alberta Health
Services. No accounting of the disaster of
privatization has ever been publicly made. What
is known is that there was fierce opposition
from those working in the labs to the
degradation of lab services, including concerns
about the private contractor organizing the work
in a manner that disregarded expertise and
prioritizing work that was the most lucrative
instead of according to urgency and patient
need. It is outrageous that the government will
now reintroduce the same failed, anti-social
schemes, based on the self-serving
recommendations of the monopoly Ernst &
Young, which directly profits from privatization
schemes, and a hand-picked panel of neo-liberal
hacks who produced the MacKinnon Report on
Alberta's finances.
The refusal to stop paying the rich and
increase investments in social programs has
created the current situation where a health
care system already working at over-capacity and
where workers experience unsustainable workloads
is now faced with the COVID-19 crisis. Health
care workers are showing what they are made of,
while the financial oligarchy and its
representatives are obsessed with self-serving
schemes to benefit from the crisis. The Kenney
government clearly intends to continue on this
path of destruction, while organizing
pay-the-rich schemes to funnel state funds into
the coffers of the energy oligarchs.
The reversal of all privatization schemes is in
order, including ambulance services, hospital
housekeeping, food and other hospital services.
Public services must be expanded and public
enterprises developed. All layoff notices and
planned staff reductions must be immediately
cancelled, and temporary workers who have been
laid off, such as the large numbers in child and
family services, be immediately rehired.
Instead of handing over billions to the banks,
energy and other oligarchs, investments should
be directed to public enterprises, including the
construction of the new public medical lab
needed in Alberta. Alberta has much expertise in
medical research at the University of Alberta
and elsewhere. Immediate development of a
Canadian publicly owned and controlled
pharmaceutical industry is also a priority so
that instead of the added-value created by
medical researchers, laboratory workers and
professionals being seized by private interests
and mainly removed from the economy, it can be
reinvested in expansion of health care,
long-term care and other public services. People
can empower themselves by demanding these
investments be made. Health care workers and
professionals who actually know what is needed
must be the ones who say what is needed.
Pro-social measures are needed to resolve the
crisis in a manner which favours the people, not
the rich.
New Brunswick
Workers Locked Out Despite Emergency
Locked-out CUPE Local 4193 workers and
supporters rally before dispersing to respect
COVID-19
distancing regulations, Allardville, March 18,
2020. (CUPE
Local 4193)
CUPE New Brunswick informs from Allardville on
March 20 that despite a provincial state of
emergency, the Chaleur Regional Service
Commission (CRSC) directors are still refusing
to let the Red Pine landfill workers come back
to work.
"On Tuesday [March 17], we asked the employer
to pause their lockout during the COVID-19
crisis. They refused," said Serge Plourde,
President of CUPE Local 4193.
The 23 workers have been locked-out since
February because CRSC management wants more
power to deny sick leave to workers.
"They say doctors' notes are required on the
first day you call in sick. Top medical experts
have all denounced such policies. Why? Because
it seriously increases the number of employees
working sick," said Robert LeMoignan, CUPE
Servicing Representative.
"The whole world is doing all it can to fight
the pandemic. Meanwhile, the CRSC wants to force
work policies that aggravate the crisis!" said
LeMoignan.
After the province declared a state of
emergency on March 19, CRSC management posted
six new "scab" job openings online.
"At least three replacement workers [each paid
over $15 an hour more than regular workers] are
on site. The directors are also paying $300 an
hour for the services of an anti-union lawyer
from Fredericton," said LeMoignan.
"They are noticing our members' experience is
necessary to run the site, but they still want
to break us. We should be back at work during
this crisis. It's not a time to fool around,"
said Plourde.
"These directors -- Dayna Carroll and Jocelyne
Hachey -- have lost all credibility. Their
refusal to pause the lockout, during a state of
emergency, is making the Chaleur area mayors
look like complete fools," said LeMoignan.
- Pierre Chénier -
Workers' Forum has received reports
from northern and southern New Brunswick that
ruling elites in the province are using the
COVID-19 pandemic to escalate their attacks on
the working class.
Allardville Landfill Workers
In the Chaleur Region in the north, the Chaleur
Regional Service Commission (CRSC) locked out 23
Allardville landfill workers on February 12.
They are members of CUPE Local 4193. From the
beginning of the lockout, the CRSC has hired
scabs to cross the picket line and even received
a court order to limit the number of picketers
at any time to six.
In response to this attack on their rights,
the CUPE members and supporters of the 23
locked-out workers have taken their struggle to
the community and have received a great response
and support. CUPE Local 4193 held a rally in
Belledune on March 12, where strong community
support was shown for the locked-out workers.
Following the rally, CUPE presented the Deputy
Mayor of Belledune with a petition signed by
1,200 community members from across the region
calling for an end to the lockout.
The workers say that before the pandemic
emergency they had been going door to door in
the region to explain the situation facing the
landfill workers. CUPE reports the community
expressed strong opposition to the lockout, in
particular to the use of scabs, which people
feel is unjust and uses the unemployed in the
region in a spiteful way to split the people and
attack particular workers. The petition is
available here.
Following a provincial government emergency
pandemic directive on March 19, the Allardville
landfill workers took down their picket in
compliance with the order not to congregate
during the COVID-19 crisis. Immediately upon the
declaration of the New Brunswick emergency and
removal of the picket, the CRSC posted a new
notice on its website to hire more scabs to
replace the positions held by locked-out CUPE
Local 4193 members at wages well above what
workers receive under their collective
agreement.
Sandy Harding, CUPE Maritimes Regional
Director, told the media that she was
"disgusted" that the Chaleur regional government
would use the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity
to escalate their use of scabs to replace CUPE
workers. "This is truly a shameful situation,"
she said. "We reached out to the employer and
respectfully asked them to pause the lockout
during this crisis situation and they quickly
refused. We then asked them to bargain
(virtually) so that we could come to some
resolution and allow these workers the respect
they deserve; but the employer's representative
doesn't really want to talk unless the local
agrees to concessions on sick notes and Union
leave language. I am disgusted by this whole
situation and my heart goes out to the strong
workers who are simply standing up for
collective agreement language they already
have."
CUPE Local 4193 President Serge Plourde, a
labourer at the landfill, spoke to the media
after seeing his job advertised by the CRSC.
Plourde says the 23 members locked-out of their
worksite are being treated like the garbage sent
to the landfill by the CRSC, whose board members
are the mayors of Belledune, Bathurst,
Petit-Rocher, Pointe-Verte, Beresford, Nigadoo
and four Local Service District representatives
of the provincial government.
In the face of the pandemic, the locked-out
workers had agreed to return to their jobs and
reopen the landfill if the CRSC would resume
negotiations for an acceptable collective
agreement. The CRSC bluntly refused to agree and
instead reintroduced demands already settled and
insisted workers accept the employer's demands,
including the one forcing workers to provide a
doctor's note when off sick even for one day and
to limit the number of unpaid union leave days
taken by worker representatives.
In rejecting the workers' offer to return to
work, the CRSC also said it had appointed a new
negotiator from Fredericton who only speaks and
reads English. The union team's lead negotiator,
Robert LeMoignan, CUPE National Representative,
told the media this manoeuvre underscores the
employer's dictatorial behaviour and lack of
respect for the workers, as the Chaleur region
is mostly French-speaking and the proposals from
both sides are all in French and the CUPE team
is comprised of francophones. In addition, the
CRSC appears to have hardened its positions,
given the landfill will be operated by scabs,
and refuses to even admit that some issues have
already been settled.
City of Saint John Outside Workers
 In
southern New Brunswick, the City of Saint John
is intensifying pressure on outside workers
using COVID-19 as the rationale. The municipal
government bargaining team has been demanding
that CUPE Local 18, the city's outside workers,
accept a wage freeze. NB Media Co-op reports
Saint John Mayor Don Darling wrote on his blog
on March 19 that given the COVID-19 situation,
he will not support any raises with unionized
labour. The mayor pompously declared that he
will reject any raises, bonuses or barriers in
any new agreement with workers and he expects
councillors to support his position. The mayor's
anti-worker stance reflects his position as
representative of the powerful financial
oligarchy in New Brunswick and in particular the
owners of the two dominant companies in the
city, the Irving Oil refinery and the J.D.
Irving pulp and paper company.
CUPE's Brien Watson told NB Media Co-op that
he is very concerned about Mayor Darling's
suggestion that all the municipal workers should
have their wages frozen for four years because
municipal sector wages have fallen so far behind
the rising cost of living.
The workers' claims are just and these attacks
on them must stop. Shame on the Chaleur Regional
Service Commission and the Mayor of Saint John.
The use of positions of privilege and power to
impose self-serving positions is to be
condemned. It is totally out of sync with the
requirements of the times and in contempt of the
culture of respect for working people Canada
requires. Only after the needs of the working
people are looked after can other problems be
sorted out.
Nova Scotia
- K.C. Adams -
The Nova Scotia Government and General
Employees Union (NSGEU) is the largest union in
the province of Nova Scotia, representing the
individual and collective interests of over
30,000 public and private sector employees.
NSGEU members work in the civil service, centres
of education, universities, hospitals, liquor
stores, correctional facilities, municipalities,
and other organizations across the province.
 In recent years,
the NSGEU has been resisting the attacks of the
McNeil Liberal Party government in power which
has unleashed assault after assault on workers'
right to bargain collectively for wages and
working conditions acceptable to themselves. The
working conditions of NSGEU workers in many
cases have a direct effect on the conditions of
the people they serve.
The Liberal Party in power has passed laws
declaring home care workers and nurses essential
to the health of the province yet has denied
these essential workers the right to decide
their working conditions and wages and what they
require to perform their work properly. This
contradiction has carried over into the current
COVID-19 crisis where the government continues
to deny public health care workers a leading
role and voice in organizing to defeat the
pandemic. Without mobilizing and unleashing the
initiative and power of the working class, the
fight against the pandemic is seriously
undermined and weakened.
The history of depriving the health care sector
of the leadership and voice of the working class
has created a crisis with staffing shortages and
escalating wait times even before the onset of
the pandemic. The NSGEU has published reports
with clear solutions reflecting the views of
health care workers from the front lines but the
government continues to suppress the rights and
voice of the people who do the work.
The NSGEU writes on its website of decades of
cuts to the civil service having a negative
impact on its members working in community
services, child welfare, corrections, and
courthouses. Occupational health and safety are
top of mind. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals in a
stark way the folly of weakening the health
sector, social programs and public services. The
anti-social offensive must be reversed with
increased investments in social programs and
public services. For the sake of all the people,
the province and society, the working class must
present its views on what is needed in its own
loud voice and not be silent in the face of the
anti-social measures of cartel party governments
and employers. The modern world cannot function
and solve its problems without the organized
leadership and voice of the working people.
- Jason MacLean -
Jason MacLean is President of the Nova
Scotia Government Employees and General
Workers Union.
I am in constant contact with people from the
Department of Health and Wellness. We are giving
our members' perspective on how things are
affecting the workplace and what should be done.
They are receptive and we are working well
together.
 There are issues that came up in
our workplaces such as the need to have adequate
personal protective equipment (PPE), to organize
for people to work from home, to make sure that
workers who are put on 14 days quarantine leave
are getting paid.
There is a huge issue coming up with childcare.
All schools and all daycares have been shut
down. Last week was not such a big issue because
it was March break but now March break is over
and the schools are still closed. There are no
daycares. A lot of our members still have to go
to work but they have child care issues. Some
employers are saying to our members if you do
not have childcare, work it out with your
managers and if you can't work it out, use your
own lieu time, your banked time or your vacation
time. Workers should not have to deplete their
own bank accounts because of the pandemic. This
is something we are trying to have addressed by
the government and it is a huge issue across all
sectors.
As far as PPE is concerned, we are still in the
midst of it. For instance, in home care, we are
reaching out to our providers and asking them
what PPE are you providing for the people. They
are saying that they are providing the proper
PPE but they are not telling us what it is. We
need answers to this. Our home care workers do
not have gloves, shields, masks or gowns. Some
providers have them but others don't. Our
members are going from one workplace, which is
somebody's home, to another workplace which is
somebody's home. They have to have proper
protection.
We know we are going to get hit worse, but the
measures that are being put in place are going
to help us to get through this crisis. We all
have to work for the well-being of all the
people in Nova Scotia.
(To access articles
individually click on the black headline.)
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