Unions should take their arguments to the boards
By Letter to the Editor on December 13, 2019.
The government does not lay off teachers and nurses, the boards do. There has been much coverage in the news as of late on how the government is laying off teachers and nurses. As a UNIFOR shop steward, I understand that the public sector unions have an important role to play in protecting the jobs of their membership, but claiming that the government is eliminating positions is not accurate. Take the Calgary Board of Education, a school board whose budget is the equivalent to almost one half of the entire operating budget for the City of Calgary. In a budget of some $1.2 billion, the “only” way to cut costs is to eliminate teaching positions? I find that incomprehensible. Alberta Health Services is choosing to affect front-line staffing instead of eliminating waste and finding efficiencies in management and administration. This is the fault of AHS, not the government. Public sector unions should be taking their arguments up with the boards that actually make the staffing decisions, and challenge them to find the savings within their systems, instead of attacking their own front-line workers that provide the services. Marco Jansen Medicine Hat (The writer is a UNIFOR/ATSAC Local 2245 Shop Steward and the Constituency President for the UCP in Cypress-Medicine Hat) 9-8
Hmm.
Well, Mr. Jansen, you make a good case within the first four paragraphs. Had to re-read the last paragraph several times, but it seems that you’re saying that public sector unions should be challenging the boards to find internal financial efficiencies rather than the boards of these organizations laying off front line staff, correct?
Hopefully you read the online comments. Just letting you know I enjoyed what you had to say, and am double-checking that I’ve understood what it was you’ve written.
How much money would be saved by eliminating waste and finding efficiencies in management and administration? Drop in the bucket, AHS would still have to let go thousands of front line workers. This Government is still looking for the “third way” for healthcare. When will this de-funding of public services end?
The government does not lay off teachers and nurses, the boards do, this is a correct statement. It is time that the Alberta Government has external auditors investigate the abuse in wages and expense accounts for upper management in the Alberta Health Services and every School District. I believe they will find misallocation of funds, ridiculously high wages, monies being spent on alcohol, ridiculous retreats, office renovations, lavish furniture purchases, abused expense accounts, over staffing, lavish office decorating, conflict of interest, should I say more. Those that work in upper positions in School Districts and Health services are working in the public sector. They are NOT entitled to wages and expense accounts, bonuses that can NOT even be found in the private sector. It is time for accountability in ALL sectors of the ALBERTAN tax funded systems. ONLY an external auditor will be able to produce an accurate, concise, account of where TAX PAYER dollars are being wasted. It is NOT that there are not enough monies for Teachers and Nurses, it is the ABUSE that continues to happen as School boards and Health Boards continue to rubber stamp lavish spending and wages for upper management. It is time to disband ALL School and Health Boards and consolidate them into 4 zones. North, South, East and West, ensuring that people that are sit on this boards have the accounting and knowledge to understand how these systems are operated. No longer being a warm body should be the requirements to sit on these boards.