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This fall, an advisory committee to the Minister of Health recommended that Alberta tear up its health care laws in favour of vague and unclear statements of "principles" and "guidelines."

Minister of Health Gene Zwozdesky is now considering those recommendations. The Friends of Medicare is urging all Albertans to send the Minister a message: Don't Tear Up the Laws!

Alberta's existing health care laws put us on stable ground.

Our current laws provide  protections against U.S.-style private insurance, extra billing by doctors, two-tier health care and queue jumping, and private hospitals.

It is noteworthy that these protections are not contained in the Canada Health Act - they are the responsibility of the provinces. And it is these laws that Alberta is proposing to change.

Scrapping our existing health-care laws is a dangerous path for any health minister, given the way the Minister's Advisory Committee is proposing that new laws be written. The Advisory Committee has proposed that new laws put most of the details into regulation - structuring health-care laws as so-called "enabling legislation." This would put an enormous amount of power in the hands of the Health Minister.

Furthermore, it shields changes to the health-care system from public debate, as changes do not have to go before the Legislature. If the Advisory Committee's changes are accepted, private insurance, private hospitals, or two-tier health care can be brought in with the stroke of a pen, and behind closed doors.

Improving our public health-care system doesn't involve tearing up the laws. We can save money, deliver better care, and preserve the system for the future with innovations like bringing down the price of pharmaceuticals, improving primary care, and investing in prevention and promotion.

Call, write (click here for sample letter), and e-mail Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky. Urge him to consider real and lasting improvements to the health-care system, by strengthening public medicare for all Albertans. Ask him to reject the Minister's Advisory Committee recommendation to tear up our health-care laws. And tell him that Albertans want their government to spend their time working on better public health care, not trying to invent new ways to privatize medicare behind closed doors.

To contact Minister Zwozdesky:

Legislature Offices

Legislature Office
#208 Legislature Building
10800 97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB
Canada T5K 2B6
Phone: (780) 427-3665
Fax: (780) 415-0961

E-mail: [email protected]

Constituency Offices

Constituency Office
8207 Argyll Road
Edmonton, AB
Canada T6C 4B2
Phone: (780) 466-3737
Fax: (780) 468-3359
[email protected]

Alberta needs a revolution in political thinking and that will require going back to the future to recall the kind of thinking that helped establish the province.

A hundred years ago, settlers in Alberta found a way to prosper amid harsh conditions and isolation.

"Back then, before oil, Alberta was not a wealthy place," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, at Thursday's Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs session. "People eked out a modest living, they raised cattle, they planted crops, they scratched coal from the coalface."

Today in Alberta, sod houses have been replaced by climate-controlled homes and tradesmen earn healthy wages building oilsands projects. Even though Alberta today is a world apart from what it was in 1910, McGowan said the lessons of the past hold the key to solving today's problems.

Rather than being rugged individualists who made their own way, Alberta pioneers worked hard but also valued co-operation.

"They knew that some challenges, some problems were too big for one person to handle so they banded together to find public solutions to public problems," he said.

They created school boards, irrigation co-operatives, wheat pools and marketing boards.

"It's important to say that those things didn't come with private enterprise; it was public enterprise that brought those services to these far-flung communities," McGowan said.

That kind of approach allowed Peter Lougheed to establish a petro-chemical industry, by using regulation and public ownership, when he saw that jobs were being lost because raw forms of natural gas were being shipped out of the province.

"What previous generations of Albertans knew was that some problems were too big and some issues too important to be left to chance or the vagaries of the free market," he said.

McGowan said he doesn't see things have changed that much. The environmental implications of oilsands development, the loss of jobs down the pipeline as raw bitumen is exported, education for the technical jobs of the 21st century, better health care, meeting the needs of rapidly growing populations and declining pension coverage are all public problems.

Public solutions are one thing; paying for them is another. McGowan said Alberta has the resources to deal with the problems. Despite the recession, Alberta has a rainy-day fund and no public debt. Over the past 20 years the provincial economy has grown by leaps and bounds and corporate profits are four times greater while their tax rates have gone down.

"We have a situation of unprecedented private wealth while at the same time we have a government that's pleading poverty. There's a disconnect," he said.

McGowan said politics lies at the heart of the matter. Over the past 20 years, politics in much of the western world has been dominated by a "virulent" form of conservatism that demonizes the public sector, that rejects community solutions and puts the free market up on a pedestal.
"Politicians in Alberta have embraced what I would describe as a dangerous mythology, one that sees a vastly diminished role for government in promoting and protecting our public interest," he said.

McGowan said he sees three problems with that approach: It's simplistic; it doesn't reflect Albertans' values; and it imposes a restraint on debate.

Instead of having a range of options to consider, governments with this narrow view won't even consider options previous governments would have. Government interventions of the Lougheed kind wouldn't even be considered in today's political climate.

"We have to start expanding the range of possible. In many ways we have to go back to the future," he said. "We have to go back to that pioneer thinking which characterized Alberta from the beginning which took a very pragmatic approach to political problem-solving."

Lethbridge Herald
Byline: Caroline Zentner

Workers in Alberta can now look up the health and safety record of their employers online, but critics aren't convinced the information tells the full story.

The government launched the new website Thursday. It allows people to search a database and receive information about loss time claims and rates at companies as well as on-the-job fatalities at those places.

"It is so Albertans have a good idea of their employer or prospective employer's record on health and safety," said Chris Chodan with Alberta Employment and Immigration.

Gil McGowan with the Alberta Federation of Labour said the government said the website would be a one-stop shop for people interested in their employer's record, but that is not what has been delivered.

"What we got instead was a site that hides employment safety records behind a wall of confusing and downright useless information."

The site allows people to search by industry, company name and city and provides information on companies using data from the Workers' Compensation Board (WCB).

McGowan said the problem with loss time claim rates is that employers report them and when they rise, so do their WCB premium rates.

He said while they don't have firm statistics, his group has heard many reports of employers putting employees on modified duties or otherwise not reporting loss hours to keep their claims down.

"You shouldn't be using statistics that can be so easily compromised."

McGowan said they would like to see provincially issued stop-work orders and stop-use orders listed on the site and would also like to see inspection reports that the province does at worksites as part of the database.

Chodan said stop-work orders and inspection reports could be added over time, but for right now they went with the loss time claim numbers because they are universal.

'They are known as a universally recognized statistic," he said. "It is a standard that has to be reported."

McGowan has also cited many examples of workplace accidents or charges that aren't listed on the site. He said the information in some cases just isn't there for some companies or is harder to find in other cases.

"It simply doesn't have the information on the website that workers need."

Chodan said in some cases there are multiple companies at a site where a fatality or accident occurred. He said in other cases one company can be charged for an accident that affected an employee of another firm.

"The company that gets charged might not be the actual employer."

There is one missing piece of information on a local company's profile - Mitchell Tanner, an employee at the Rona store died on the job in 2008, but that information is not part of the company's profile.

The address for the website is www.employment.alberta.ca/employerrecords.

St. Albert Gazette, Sat Oct 02 2010
By Ryan Tumilty

A group of Edmonton janitors is suing a cleaning company for $42,435 over allegations that overtime money is being held back and that they have been threatened with deportation.

The janitors, many of whom are temporary foreign workers from the Philippines, say their employer, University of Alberta contractor Bee Clean Building Maintenance, is refusing to pay them tens of thousands of dollars in overtime.

Bee Clean declined to comment on the allegations.

When the non-unionized workers questioned the company about the alleged lost wages, they claim they were being threatened with deportation.

Danilo DeLeon, who is a temporary foreign worker from the Philippines, moved to Edmonton to work for Bee Clean about a year and a half ago.

'They treat us like slaves, not [as] workers.'-Danilo DeLeon

He said he works five, 12-hour shifts every week, with an extra seven-hour shift on what would otherwise be his day off.

DeLeon said he's supposed to get time and a half for anything more than 80 hours every two weeks.

But Bee Clean has refused to pay, he claimed.

"They treat us like slaves, not [as] workers," DeLeon said.

When he told his employer he would contact a union or the Ministry of Labour about Bee Clean's refusal to pay him, DeLeon said his boss threatened to have him deported.

"My supervisor threatened to send me back home. He said the owner was upset," he said.

Still, DeLeon told the Service Employees International Union about his case.

Union spokeswoman Merryn Edwards said it has filed civil suits to try to get money for five Bee Clean employees.

Edwards said the union filed an unfair labour practice complaint with the Alberta Labour Relations Board on Friday.

Workers are afraid to complain: advocate

"The level of threats and intimidation here is very serious. You know the threats of deportation being perhaps the most serious, but to be threatened with job loss or having their hours cut is very serious," Edwards said.

Amy Kaler, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta said the university needs to seriously looks at the allegations of underpayment, harassment and unsafe working conditions.

"As an university employee, I'm embarrassed that the person who cleans my office and empties my waste basket has to put up with the kind of degrading treatment that the people here are telling us this morning," Kaler said Friday at news conference at the University of Alberta on the issue.

Yessy Byl, a temporary foreign worker advocate with the Alberta Federation of Labour, said the Bee Clean case is a prime example of exploitative issues temporary foreign workers across Canada face on a daily basis.

Earlier this month, Alberta announced it would be reviewing a program that brings temporary foreign workers to the province.

Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said the review will look at what impact the arrival of thousands of workers from out of the country has on Alberta's workforce.

Calgary MLA Theresa Woo-Paw, who is leading the review, will report her findings and recommendations by spring 2011.

As well, the Temporary Foreign Worker program, a federal initiative, was established to help employers fill temporary jobs.

Despite the governments' efforts, however, temporary foreign workers still live in fear, Byl said.

"Most foreign workers are afraid to complain, because they are in situations where they are supporting families back home. They need this job desperately," she said at the news conference.

More than 60,000 in Alberta

Byl said the federal and provincial governments do nothing to protect temporary foreign workers if they are wrongfully terminated. In fact, governments make it impossible for the worker to get a new job, and in the end the worker is deported, she said.

"At no time does the employer get prosecuted by the federal government or provincial government [for the wrongful termination]," she said. "It's the workers who end up bearing the burden."

There are more than 60,000 temporary foreign workers in Alberta, according to provincial officials.

CBC News, Fri Oct 1 2010

Edmonton - Alberta's new website offering workplace injury and fatality records may be well intentioned, but gets a failing grade from the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL).

"This morning, we tried working with this new website. It does not give complete information, is not easily accessible, and is very difficult to understand," says Gil McGowan, President of the AFL which represents 140,000 workers.

The AFL took names of companies charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Employment Standards Code - see http://employment.alberta.ca/SFW/6751.html#top for details - and searched the new safety records website for information on those companies.

The new site offers information that is almost useless to the average citizen and in a format that is hard to navigate and digest.

We found:

• Clayton Construction Limited is facing seven charges, laid September 2, 2010, for an alleged offence involving a fatality on September 2, 2008. A search on the new site came up with "no results found."
• Canadian Natural Resources faces two charges from the same fatal event. The same company has also been charged in relation to three other fatalities and three injuries - or six of the 31 active charges (20 per cent) listed by Employment and Immigration. A search of the new site brings up three records for the company, two of which have references to Lost Time Claims (LTCs) in 2008, and LTC rates marginally above the rates for the industry, but no reference is made to the fatality or charges.
• Central Alberta Well Services Corp. faces five charges for an alleged offence on August 26, 2008. A search on the new website results in a dizzying array of eight records for the company, under varying Industry Name segments, each giving different Lost Time Claim statistics.

"This kind of information may be of some use to professional researchers and statisticians, but it is bewildering and meaningless to average citizens and workers trying to find out if employers do a good job on health and safety," says McGowan.

While the AFL is pleased that more information is being published than in other jurisdictions, that information is of little use in its current form, says McGowan. The website also fails to include the most important data - a full record of violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Code.

"Albertans need to know how many times employers have been written up by health and safety officers and those reports should be posted, the same way some jurisdictions post health-inspector reports done on restaurants. We also think the website should have information about all 'stop-work' and/or 'stop-use' orders that have been issued to Alberta companies for safety violations," he says.

- 30 -

Media Contact:

Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour @ 780-218-9888 (cell)

Alberta's employment ministry is heralding a new website that tracks company-specific fatalities and workers' compensation claims, but already the opposition says not enough information is being disclosed.

Thomas Lukaszuk, the politician in charge of the portfolio, announced the launch of the online initiative Thursday morning, arguing the data will lead to increased transparency and safety.

"I hope that releasing this information will make Albertans more accountable for the safety of themselves and their co-workers. I hope it makes employers more accountable to their employees," he said of statistics compiled through the Workers' Compensation Board.

"Employers will have another incentive to improve health and safety performance on the job site."

Liberal critics, however, believe the online resource doesn't fulfill its purpose because there is information missing about safety violations.

"If we want to make a real difference and make our work sites safe and productive, the minister has to release the orders, the written orders that have been submitted to an employer as a result of Occupational Health and Safety laws," said Hugh MacDonald.

"64 per cent of work sites in this province that were inspected had to have a written order, for either an unsafe or unhealthy work site."

The Alberta Federation of Labour seconds MacDonald's concerns, saying information on companies convicted under the Occupational Health and Safety Act is available through other government sites, and should be included on this new one as well.

"We are afraid people visiting the website looking for information on a particular employer will get a false impression on whether that company is really taking workplace health and safety seriously," said Gil McGowan.

Right now the profiles of 140,000 employers insured by the Workers' Compensation Board are available, allowing Albertans to see how companies within the same industries compare to one another. Information includes number of lost-time claims made, number of fatalities and whether employers hold a Certificate of Recognition - a designation given to workplaces that develop health and safety programs that meet set standards.

Building Trades of Alberta is applauding the initiative.

"This gives [people] the grassroots information that says, 'has this employer had fatalities?'" said Ron Harry.

Lukaszuk says the undertaking is the first of its kind and could one day be expanded to include other information, including written work orders.

CTV News, Thur Sept 30 2010
Jessica Earle

EDMONTON - Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk has unveiled a new workplace safety website that allows many Albertans to see basic information about how many injuries and deaths have happened at their workplaces.

The website contains injury and fatality information for 140,000 companies dating back to 2005, and compares each company's performance to industry and provincial averages.

Alberta is the first province to make such extensive workplace safety information searchable online.

"Albertans have the right to know the safety record of each and every employer," Lukaszuk said. "We hope that by shining a light on the injury and fatality records of individual employers, we will improve the safety culture in this province."

The website allows Albertans to see how many company workers have died in each of the past four years.

Under the heading "lost time claims," users can also see how many injuries and diseases forced employees to take time off work. Under the heading "LTC Rate," users can see how likely a worker is to become injured or diseased during one year of work at the company.

That "LTC Rate" is then compared with previous years, other companies in the same industry and with the Alberta average.

Lukaszuk said Thursday he hopes workers and their families will use the search tool to see how safe their workplaces are. He also expects consumers will use it to hire businesses that make safety a priority, which will in turn put competitive pressure on companies to improve their safety practices.

Similarly, he said businesses will for the first time be able to see how they stack up to others in their industry, in terms of safety. He expects safer work sites will draw more qualified, dedicated workers.

Lukaszuk dismissed calls for a Top 50 or Top 100 worst employers list, saying Albertans have different ideas about what constitutes safe and they can decide for themselves with access to the information now available online.

The new government website uses data obtained from the Workers Compensation Board, and so it only contains information for companies that are insured by the WCB. It does not include information for nearly 12,000 businesses for whom insurance is voluntary, such as farms, medical centres, advertising agencies, banks, insurance companies and clubs.

Liberal critic Hugh MacDonald said most of the information was already available online and that the province should make inspection orders public.

"If we want to make a real difference and make our work sites safe and productive in this province, the minister has to release the orders that have been submitted to an employer as a result of occupational health and safety laws," he said.

He said last year there were more than 14,000 inspections at Alberta work sites and 9,000 written orders, and that Albertans have the right to know what inspectors found on their work sites.

Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour said the idea of a website is good but the site unveiled Thursday is "deeply disappointing.

"If the goal of this website is to provide Albertans with information that will allow them to see the safety records of individual companies, it simply fails to do the job.

"It only provides a bewildering array of confusing statistics and, frankly, made-up ratios that don't really mean anything to most people," he said. "It buries people under an avalanche of information, most of which is completely useless."

He said the government's decision to use lost time claims information as the basis for the website suggests the government caved into pressure from employers who wanted to keep more damning documents and evidence secret.

Like McDonald, he argues the government should make workplace inspection reports public.

"We have been arguing for years that the government should post a list of repeat violators who have consistently put their workers at risk."

Edmonton Journal, Thurs Sept 30 2010
By Karen Kleiss

The province wants Albertans to know how many injuries or deaths have happened at their workplace.

To that end, it's launching a website Thursday to make the stats more available.

The site is part of a 10-point plan from the Ministry of Employment and Immigration in an effort to make occupational health and safety more transparent and accountable.

Thanks to the site, people will be able to go online and find out the safety record of their office, sales floor or work site.

Albertans will also be able to compare those numbers with averages from around the province or within the specific industry.

The provincial government sees this as a big step forward but critics see it more as a small shuffle in the right direction.

In the Lethbridge Herald, the Alberta Federation of Labour says it wants the government to go much further in cracking down on unsafe employers.

The group would like to see the province do what it's promised for eight years and come down hard on businesses that have poor records.

The AFL points out the province has a 2.8 per cent conviction rate when following-up on workplace fatalities.

The group says what the province should be doing is giving more power to health and safety inspectors so they can force employers to clean up their acts.

They say it's sad that parking officers have more authority than those inspectors.

In 2009 there were 110 deaths on the job in Alberta. According to stats from last year, the most dangerous industries are the construction, manufacturing, mining and petroleum sectors.

660News, Thurs Sept 30 2010
Byline: Cormac Mac Sweeney