(All pictures have been removed from the articles because they take up so much memory in each post. To see the pictures use the web address and visit the sites of the newspapers.)
“Teachers tend to have teachers in their family, you can’t reverse discriminate,” said Bumbacco.
Board nepotism came into the spotlight two years ago when it was learned that four of the board’s nine elected trustees couldn’t vote on such major issues as staffing and budgets because they had children working as teachers, and that education director Paul Picard had two siblings working at the board.
But Bumbacco said nepotism is a union-raised red herring. “I don’t agree, senior administration doesn’t agree and our trustees don’t agree.”
Knoblauch says he believes that nepotism and favouritism is behind a recent move to create a small roster of occasional teachers who’ll be the only ones eligible for long-term placements (for maternity leaves, for example) and full-time jobs. On Jan. 7, about 195 occasional teachers who were qualified to apply for these roster spots were sent letters informing them they wouldn’t be interviewed. About 65 successful occasional teachers were interviewed a week ago.
For many of the rejected teachers, it means a dramatic drop in the number of days they work and the loss of hope they’ll ever be hired as full-time teachers.
“They’re losing their houses, they’re losing their cars, they’re going bankrupt,” Knoblauch said of his members. “These are people accustomed to working four or five days a week and all of a sudden they’re not getting anything.”
As a result, many will be forced to leave for other work, which Knoblauch believes is what the board wants, so recently hired occasional teachers – some of whom have familiar last names, he claims – can get the teaching hours needed to qualify for the long-term roster and eventually get hired on full time.
“Their motive is to get the teachers who have been on the (occasional) list for awhile waiting to be hired, to leave, so they can make room for these new people that they’ve just hired,” said Knoblauch.
Formerly, the board had to hire two-thirds of its full-timers from the occasional teacher ranks but could hire the rest right out of teacher’s college. That rule has been changed with the recent memorandum of understanding forged between the Ontario government and the Catholic teachers unions, which requires that all new full-timers be hired from a list of occasional teachers, with the five highest seniority teachers getting interviews. Knoblauch contends the local board is trying to stickhandle around this new “fair hiring” policy by handpicking its people for the long-term roster.
Knoblauch said in the last week he’s filed more than 100 grievances from teachers who believe they were unfairly denied an interview to get on the long-term roster.
But Bumbacco insisted that creating this long-term roster and allowing just a fraction of the qualified teachers to interview for it, does not breach the teachers’ contract or the MOU. It’s a practice being followed by other boards, he said.
“We put the very best teachers forward, I stand behind that. That’s what I’m paid to do, not hire by seniority.”
The union mantra is to hire based on seniority, said Bumbacco, who believes the board has to be “very careful,” about who gets on the long-term roster because that’s where all the full-time teachers will come from. “We want the best of the best,” he said.
“Mediocrity is not something I’m going to strive for with the Catholic school board.”
He disputed the suggestion that some of the 15 recently hired occasional teachers have family ties to people in senior positions at the board. “There may be a couple related to teachers,” he said. And he said there are a number of factors that have contributed to occasional teachers suffering a drop in working days, including layoffs of full-time staff (who then bump into occasional work) and changes to sick day provisions.
Knoblauch sent a letter to Education Minister Laurel Broten Jan. 9 claiming the board has violated the MOU and the ministry’s directions on how the long-term roster is to be set up. He asked that her representative – supervisor Norbert Hartmann, appointed last year to run the board to restore financial stability and public confidence – “intervene and correct this travesty.”
Neither Broten nor Hartmann were available Friday, but ministry spokesman Andrew Morrison said in an email that the fair hiring policy is designed to “ensure that everyone understands the rules and approach used by the boards as they hire the best teachers for the classroom.” But he wouldn’t comment on the legitimacy of the teachers’ complaint.
(A substitute teacher asked me to post this complaint. He had several very negative experiences where the full-time teacher put an assignment to cover their class into the system. He received the assignment through the automated system. But when he arrived at the school someone else arrived with the same class at the same school but a different assignment number. He was told that the occasional teacher with the second assignment number had the assignment. He thinks it was one of the many tricks the board and the fellow OECTA members used to let him know that they were NOT happy with him for telling many people about all of the examples of full-time and long-term occasional contract hiring of family that he had heard about through other substitute teachers. They want to keep family hiring a secret. Comments?)
(A sub with TCDSB recently told me he met someone who knows someone who is also a sub with TCDSB. They say you get assignments for sub teaching by visiting the manager of human resources with the board at the board office every day and asking for work. Also visit the schools where you want assignments EVERY DAY and you will get called there.)
(I mentioned before that if you don't have family connections with a public school board you should forget becoming a teacher. Your chances of getting full-time are not good. Besides that, it can be dangerous. I was thinking about what a custodian told a substitute teacher a few years ago. He used to be a custodian in a rough part of Toronto in a secondary school. The area had a bad reputation for gangs and violence. The students would get mouthy with him sometimes but after a few years a group of male teens surrounded him and threatened to kill him if he didn't leave. He believed they were serious. He refused to return to the school and he demanded a transfer. No further questions were asked. He got it. And he wasn't small and old. It could happen to young teachers, too. Maybe it has but they don't want us to know.)
(If you know someone who is thinking about going to teacher's college, especially in Ontario, tell them don't. The current education system is designed to minimize liability for the school board and the province, not to maximize learning. Teaching in Ontario is so frustrating, with the minimum of discipline, that it really wears you out. The children in other countries are pulling away with test results. And there's a lot of family hiring of teachers in Ontario, probably in many other places, too, who have the best personal contacts, not those with the most experience and qualifications. And the unions have accepted the deal: no grievances when they hire family members of admin as long as the board hires the family members of teachers with seniority. This way they save a lot of money on grievances and lawyers fees. But you get the shaft if you don't have the right family connections in a public board. You could end up labeled "ineffective" by a principal and then you could be stuck in substitute teaching for life at $35,000 a year.)
(I've recently been told that an experienced educator in the Metro Toronto area says that the going rate for a substitute teacher is $250.00/day. If that is so then why do substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic only earn $227.00/day? I think we need a provincial inquiry and I get to chair with an expense account and a budget and some assistants. It will take 5 years to gather all of the data while traveling to all major centres in Ontario, to hear from all of the witnesses, to write the report and the recommendations. Ok?)
(Why don't more substitute teachers report unfair hiring of relatives who just graduated in school boards? Because just to get hired as a substitute teacher with a school board in Ontario and probably in many places also you have to have family in there and unions are in on it and they help get jobs for sons and daughters of teachers as long as they don't grieve the hiring of the sons and daughters of administration. And school boards can hire around regulation 274/12 by saying the answers in the interview process were weak. So the solution to getting away from the unfairness and corruption is to send your children to small, private schools such as Montessori schools or bring in charter schools and vouchers in Ontario. The only political party that would bring those in is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.)
(Pardon me. I said that substitute teachers in Toronto only earn $225.00 a day. I have recently been informed that they received a $2.00 a day raise so it's $227.00 a day. It was the first raise for substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic in five years. But you have to have 4 years of university just to qualify to apply for the job. That isn't cheap. Don't go buying your lunch every day. Is this sufficient pay? I say NO!)
(I was recently told that 45 permanent teachers were laid-off from the Toronto Catholic District School Board because of declining enrollment.)
(Good luck getting through Christmas broke substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic. $225.00/day makes it really hard to pay-off student loans and to have a life in Toronto but your union is just way too ineffective to get you any more pay. But it really is rigged, though, isn't it? When a principal in Eastern Ontario tells a relative of a sub with Toronto Catholic that sub's who are on a list for 10 years or more are really ineffective teachers then you know your union just isn't trying. There must be some deal. Even though you can't afford to date, marry, have children or buy a home there's hope under the current system that if you have family with the board you'll get an unadvertised contract and then full-time. That's why the union doesn't care about low pay for substitutes. All those with family with the board get full-time within a few years and the principals block for them so they don't get into trouble. It's part of the deal. But isn't it bizarre those inside the deal are Catholics? Where's the conscience?)
First posted: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:10 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:13 PM EDT
Report • By Lawrence Mishel • August 29, 2012
Issue Brief #342
EPI resources on unions and the economy: Union impact on wages, jobs, benefits, income inequality, and firm performance
Declining unionization
Figure A
Students prepare to help schools in Africa
A display of humanity in sock drive for northern
Sask. First Nation to receive $4.5M compensation for
Nepotism at Catholic board alleged by teachers union
Published on: January 25, 2013 | Last Updated: January 25, 2013 5:37 PM EST
A
local teachers union president says nepotism is so commonplace at the
Catholic school board that its human resources superintendent tells
occasional teachers they need the right “genetic qualifications” to get
hired on full-time.
“He
uses this term openly when dealing with our members and when dealing
with the association in our meetings,” says Michael-John Knoblauch, who
said his members – about 400 occasional teachers represented by the
Ontario Elementary Catholic Teachers Association – have had ongoing
issues with the preferential hiring of relatives at the board. Knoblauch
said human resources superintendent Jamie Bumbacco “often talks about
genetic qualifications.”
What
that means, according to Knoblauch, is “you have to be related to
someone to get a job. That’s what he tells the members directly.”
Michael-John Knoblauch, president of OECTA Windsor-Essex Occasional Teachers
But Bumbacco called Knoblauch’s claim a “complete lie.”
He
said on Friday “genetic qualifications” is a term brought up by OECTA
officials during talks with management. “I never used that term, they
have used that term,” Bumbacco said, insisting that the board does not
have a problem with nepotism.
“Less
than 10 per cent,” of new hires are related to other employees,
superintendents, principals and trustees, he said. And much of that 10
per cent is made up of teachers whose children end up getting hired as
teachers.“Teachers tend to have teachers in their family, you can’t reverse discriminate,” said Bumbacco.
Board nepotism came into the spotlight two years ago when it was learned that four of the board’s nine elected trustees couldn’t vote on such major issues as staffing and budgets because they had children working as teachers, and that education director Paul Picard had two siblings working at the board.
But Bumbacco said nepotism is a union-raised red herring. “I don’t agree, senior administration doesn’t agree and our trustees don’t agree.”
Knoblauch says he believes that nepotism and favouritism is behind a recent move to create a small roster of occasional teachers who’ll be the only ones eligible for long-term placements (for maternity leaves, for example) and full-time jobs. On Jan. 7, about 195 occasional teachers who were qualified to apply for these roster spots were sent letters informing them they wouldn’t be interviewed. About 65 successful occasional teachers were interviewed a week ago.
For many of the rejected teachers, it means a dramatic drop in the number of days they work and the loss of hope they’ll ever be hired as full-time teachers.
“They’re losing their houses, they’re losing their cars, they’re going bankrupt,” Knoblauch said of his members. “These are people accustomed to working four or five days a week and all of a sudden they’re not getting anything.”
As a result, many will be forced to leave for other work, which Knoblauch believes is what the board wants, so recently hired occasional teachers – some of whom have familiar last names, he claims – can get the teaching hours needed to qualify for the long-term roster and eventually get hired on full time.
“Their motive is to get the teachers who have been on the (occasional) list for awhile waiting to be hired, to leave, so they can make room for these new people that they’ve just hired,” said Knoblauch.
Formerly, the board had to hire two-thirds of its full-timers from the occasional teacher ranks but could hire the rest right out of teacher’s college. That rule has been changed with the recent memorandum of understanding forged between the Ontario government and the Catholic teachers unions, which requires that all new full-timers be hired from a list of occasional teachers, with the five highest seniority teachers getting interviews. Knoblauch contends the local board is trying to stickhandle around this new “fair hiring” policy by handpicking its people for the long-term roster.
Knoblauch said in the last week he’s filed more than 100 grievances from teachers who believe they were unfairly denied an interview to get on the long-term roster.
But Bumbacco insisted that creating this long-term roster and allowing just a fraction of the qualified teachers to interview for it, does not breach the teachers’ contract or the MOU. It’s a practice being followed by other boards, he said.
“We put the very best teachers forward, I stand behind that. That’s what I’m paid to do, not hire by seniority.”
The union mantra is to hire based on seniority, said Bumbacco, who believes the board has to be “very careful,” about who gets on the long-term roster because that’s where all the full-time teachers will come from. “We want the best of the best,” he said.
“Mediocrity is not something I’m going to strive for with the Catholic school board.”
He disputed the suggestion that some of the 15 recently hired occasional teachers have family ties to people in senior positions at the board. “There may be a couple related to teachers,” he said. And he said there are a number of factors that have contributed to occasional teachers suffering a drop in working days, including layoffs of full-time staff (who then bump into occasional work) and changes to sick day provisions.
Knoblauch sent a letter to Education Minister Laurel Broten Jan. 9 claiming the board has violated the MOU and the ministry’s directions on how the long-term roster is to be set up. He asked that her representative – supervisor Norbert Hartmann, appointed last year to run the board to restore financial stability and public confidence – “intervene and correct this travesty.”
Neither Broten nor Hartmann were available Friday, but ministry spokesman Andrew Morrison said in an email that the fair hiring policy is designed to “ensure that everyone understands the rules and approach used by the boards as they hire the best teachers for the classroom.” But he wouldn’t comment on the legitimacy of the teachers’ complaint.
“If
the union feels that required procedures are not being followed by the
board, they have processes to engage in order to resolve the
disagreement,” he said.
(A substitute teacher asked me to post this complaint. He had several very negative experiences where the full-time teacher put an assignment to cover their class into the system. He received the assignment through the automated system. But when he arrived at the school someone else arrived with the same class at the same school but a different assignment number. He was told that the occasional teacher with the second assignment number had the assignment. He thinks it was one of the many tricks the board and the fellow OECTA members used to let him know that they were NOT happy with him for telling many people about all of the examples of full-time and long-term occasional contract hiring of family that he had heard about through other substitute teachers. They want to keep family hiring a secret. Comments?)
(A sub with TCDSB recently told me he met someone who knows someone who is also a sub with TCDSB. They say you get assignments for sub teaching by visiting the manager of human resources with the board at the board office every day and asking for work. Also visit the schools where you want assignments EVERY DAY and you will get called there.)
(I mentioned before that if you don't have family connections with a public school board you should forget becoming a teacher. Your chances of getting full-time are not good. Besides that, it can be dangerous. I was thinking about what a custodian told a substitute teacher a few years ago. He used to be a custodian in a rough part of Toronto in a secondary school. The area had a bad reputation for gangs and violence. The students would get mouthy with him sometimes but after a few years a group of male teens surrounded him and threatened to kill him if he didn't leave. He believed they were serious. He refused to return to the school and he demanded a transfer. No further questions were asked. He got it. And he wasn't small and old. It could happen to young teachers, too. Maybe it has but they don't want us to know.)
(If you know someone who is thinking about going to teacher's college, especially in Ontario, tell them don't. The current education system is designed to minimize liability for the school board and the province, not to maximize learning. Teaching in Ontario is so frustrating, with the minimum of discipline, that it really wears you out. The children in other countries are pulling away with test results. And there's a lot of family hiring of teachers in Ontario, probably in many other places, too, who have the best personal contacts, not those with the most experience and qualifications. And the unions have accepted the deal: no grievances when they hire family members of admin as long as the board hires the family members of teachers with seniority. This way they save a lot of money on grievances and lawyers fees. But you get the shaft if you don't have the right family connections in a public board. You could end up labeled "ineffective" by a principal and then you could be stuck in substitute teaching for life at $35,000 a year.)
(I've recently been told that an experienced educator in the Metro Toronto area says that the going rate for a substitute teacher is $250.00/day. If that is so then why do substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic only earn $227.00/day? I think we need a provincial inquiry and I get to chair with an expense account and a budget and some assistants. It will take 5 years to gather all of the data while traveling to all major centres in Ontario, to hear from all of the witnesses, to write the report and the recommendations. Ok?)
(Why don't more substitute teachers report unfair hiring of relatives who just graduated in school boards? Because just to get hired as a substitute teacher with a school board in Ontario and probably in many places also you have to have family in there and unions are in on it and they help get jobs for sons and daughters of teachers as long as they don't grieve the hiring of the sons and daughters of administration. And school boards can hire around regulation 274/12 by saying the answers in the interview process were weak. So the solution to getting away from the unfairness and corruption is to send your children to small, private schools such as Montessori schools or bring in charter schools and vouchers in Ontario. The only political party that would bring those in is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.)
(Pardon me. I said that substitute teachers in Toronto only earn $225.00 a day. I have recently been informed that they received a $2.00 a day raise so it's $227.00 a day. It was the first raise for substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic in five years. But you have to have 4 years of university just to qualify to apply for the job. That isn't cheap. Don't go buying your lunch every day. Is this sufficient pay? I say NO!)
(I was recently told that 45 permanent teachers were laid-off from the Toronto Catholic District School Board because of declining enrollment.)
(Good luck getting through Christmas broke substitute teachers with Toronto Catholic. $225.00/day makes it really hard to pay-off student loans and to have a life in Toronto but your union is just way too ineffective to get you any more pay. But it really is rigged, though, isn't it? When a principal in Eastern Ontario tells a relative of a sub with Toronto Catholic that sub's who are on a list for 10 years or more are really ineffective teachers then you know your union just isn't trying. There must be some deal. Even though you can't afford to date, marry, have children or buy a home there's hope under the current system that if you have family with the board you'll get an unadvertised contract and then full-time. That's why the union doesn't care about low pay for substitutes. All those with family with the board get full-time within a few years and the principals block for them so they don't get into trouble. It's part of the deal. But isn't it bizarre those inside the deal are Catholics? Where's the conscience?)
Scandal-plagued board looks much the same
First posted: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:10 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:13 PM EDT
TORONTO
- They're baa-aack - mostly.
Toronto
Catholic school board voters chose name recognition and old loyalties over a
clean slate, returning six out of eight incumbents running for re-election at
the scandal-plagued school board.
"It
looks like the Catholic voters of Toronto are in a forgiving mood," said
Robert Dixon, a member of Catholics United for a Responsible Ballot.
The
group had worked during the election campaign to get Catholics out to vote and
deliver a clean slate at the board.
"As
far as CURB is concerned, we'll certainly be watching them and holding them to
account."
Six
incumbents were returned: Angela Kennedy (Ward 11) who was dispatched from her
seat by a judge in August in a conflict-of-interest case; Sal Piccininni (Ward
3) who had the highest expense spending of any trustee in a provincially
ordered audit, Ann Andrachuk (Ward 2), John Del Grande (Ward 7), Barbara
Poplawski (Ward 10) recently exonerated in a conflict-of-interest case, and
Maria Rizzo (Ward 5). Apart from Rizzo - who faced a tough fight from Paul
Oulahen - all won handily.
Two
incumbents went down: Joseph Martino (Ward 1) and Catherine LeBlanc-Miller
(Ward 9), the former board chairman who, while admitting she had not been
blameless in the board's problems, had also asked the provincial government and
the police to get to the bottom of trustee expense misdeeds.
"I've
had mixed feelings about winning and losing this race," said
LeBlanc-Miller. "Dare I say it's not the worst thing not to be a member of
this board."
Nevertheless,
the board does have six new faces on it: Peter Jakovcic (Ward 1), Patrizia
Bottoni (Ward 4), Frank D'Amico (Ward 6), Jo-Ann Davis - beating LeBlanc-Miller
in Ward 9, and Nancy Crawford (Ward 12). Carol Williams also looked to be a
winner by a six-vote squeaker against Tobias Enverga in Ward 8.
"It
will still be a new board," said Penny Boyce-Chester of the Greater
Toronto Catholic Parent Network which had also called for a clean slate. She
added her group will continue to "put pressure on the incumbents ... I'm
hopeful."
Even
Toronto's Catholic Archbishop Thomas Collins took the unusual step during the
campaign of issuing two separate letters to the city's Catholic voters - the
second on Sunday - urging them to get out to the ballot box and choose trustees
"who will represent us with honour and dignity."
While
Ontario's Catholic school trustee association will be holding a training
session for new trustees in January, the archbishop plans to hold an
introductory session of his own, also unusual.
Meanwhile
be prepared for the call of "rollback!" on the slight progress
towards fiscal responsibility seen at the Toronto District School Board over
the last four years.
Monday
night's elections saw the balance of power tilt back to union-backed and lefty
candidates returned or elected for the first time to the board table.
Veteran
TDSB trustee Stephnie Payne, facing conflict-of-interest allegations, was in a
close fight - just like the 2006 election - with provincial policy advisor
Michael Sullivan. She was ahead by only 56 votes in Ward 4/York West.
The
biggest upset was the defeat of Scott Harrison, a veteran conservative trustee
for Ward 19/Scarborough Centre. Harrison, who frequently challenged chairman
and George Smitherman campaign manager Bruce Davis, was hit hard by David
Smith's vastly better-resourced campaign, with a blaze of large Liberal red
signs lining major road arteries, and backed by the board's unions.
"I
was shocked but not surprised," said Harrison. "Who I feel sorry for
are the residents of Scarborough - because they don't know what they've got [in
Smith]."
What
does it all mean? Get set for a major push-back on the board's school closure
process, supposed to produce the funds to upgrade, build and rebuild other
school facilities.
With
a provincial election coming up, we may well see this new batch of trustees put
a halt on school closures and squeeze the provincial Liberals for everything
they can.
More kids
than ever arriving to school hungry as food insecurity rises
Published on: December 25, 2016 | Last Updated: December
25, 2016 5:45 PM MST
Lesly Jamie Gomez, kindergarten, left, and her brother
Dante, grade one, finish off their breakfast at school thanks to the Food and
Nutrition at School program (FANS) at St. Henry Elementary in Calgary, on
November 19, 2015. Crystal Schick/Calgary Herald CRYSTAL SCHICK / CALGARY
HERALD
As families struggle amid the continued economic
downturn, a growing number of students are arriving to school hungry — with no
breakfast, packed snacks or lunches — depending more than ever on social
agencies for food donations.
Up to one-third of Calgary schools now receive “single-meal”
supports from the Calgary Food Bank and other local agencies, getting either
breakfast or lunches delivered to students whose parents can’t provide those
meals at home.
Food insecurity is also spilling over into the weekend, when
kids who are hungry at school are scavenging for food Saturday and Sunday
because parents are either at work or there isn’t enough at home.
“It’s a very difficult time for a lot of families, and
poverty like this has a wide-ranging impact,” said Dolores Coutts, manager of
communications and development at the Calgary Food Bank, confirming
that research shows children who aren’t well-fed have trouble learning,
focusing on tasks and behaving appropriately in class.
“With the economic downturn in Alberta, it is definitely
worse than ever.”
Coutts says over 10 months last year, the food
bank provided 4,600 weekend hampers to children in 9.5 schools, an average of
48 hampers per school per month. In comparison, over the first three months of
this year alone, the food bank provided 1,760 hampers to children in 10 schools
for an average of 58 hampers per school per month.
Overall last year, 141,271 people visited the Calgary
Food Bank for emergency hampers. Of those, 57,921 were children under the age
of 16.
This year that number has skyrocketed, with 170,093 people
seeking emergency hampers, including 66,336 children under the age of
16.
“That’s a difference of just over 8,400 children,” Coutts said.
The Calgary Food Bank continues to expand its Food
Link program, which provides food to organizations such as Brown Bagging
for Calgary Kids and 22 schools that get food to help build “emergency
pantries,” said Coutts.
“This helps teachers who would otherwise purchase food for
children out of their own pockets.”
Mark Ramsankar, president of the Alberta Teachers
Association, agrees teachers across the province are dealing with the difficult
reality of hungry students in classrooms every day.
“They are pulling food out of their own lunches, or making
purchases with their own money, because they know there are children in their
classes that don’t have enough food for the day,” he said.
“It’s just another complexity they deal with every day. And
when they see that, when they know that what they’re doing for that child still
probably isn’t enough, it can be really stressful.”
Education Minister David Eggen hopes the NDP government’s
recent announcement to expand school nutrition programs is a good start, with a
promise of further funding in future years.
“We’ve put $3.5 million into a pilot that will benefit 14
school boards. And then we’re expanding that to $10 million the year after, and
then doubling it to $20 million by 2018.
“We will grow this support exponentially, because the need
out there is obvious.”
James McAra, president and CEO at Calgary Food Bank, says
the community also needs to look at the big picture — why families are struggling
to pay for food — and help make the cost of raising children more manageable.
School fees continue to be a huge burden, with parents
doling out $335 annually for busing and another $285 for lunchroom supervision,
in addition to instructional fees.
Schools, McAra said, could look at working closer with the
community, allowing volunteers to help with lunch supervision or create
joint-use agreements allowing non-profit groups to provide affordable
after-school care.
“I remember as a parent, there was a time when we could
volunteer to supervise the lunchroom,” McAra said.
“What happened to that? And why are we no longer qualified?
Our food bank runs on thousands of volunteers. It takes some work and
organization, but schools could do this, too.”
Sydney Smith, area director for CBE, says with unionized
staff now running lunchrooms in schools, replacing them with volunteers would
be difficult.
Eggen, however, says “schools across the province are
involving the community in different ways. I’d encourage them to look for ways
to reduce costs by reaching past their walls and into the community.”
Unions, inequality, and faltering
middle-class wages
Report • By Lawrence Mishel • August 29, 2012
Issue Brief #342
EPI resources on unions and the economy: Union impact on wages, jobs, benefits, income inequality, and firm performance
Between 1973 and 2011, the median worker’s real hourly
compensation (which includes wages and benefits) rose just 10.7 percent. Most
of this growth occurred in the late 1990s wage boom, and once the boom subsided
by 2002 and 2003, real wages and compensation stagnated for most
workers—college graduates and high school graduates alike. This has made the
last decade a “lost decade” for wage growth. The last decade has also been
characterized by increased wage inequality between workers at the top and those
at the middle, and by the continued divergence between overall productivity and
the wages or compensation of the typical worker.
A major factor driving these trends has been the ongoing
erosion of unionization and the declining bargaining power of unions, along
with the weakened ability of unions to set norms or labor standards that raise
the wages of comparable nonunion workers. This preview of the forthcoming The
State of Working America, 12th Edition presents a detailed analysis of the
impact of unionization on wages and benefits and on wage inequality. Key
findings include:
The union wage premium—the percentage-higher wage earned by
those covered by a collective bargaining contract—is 13.6 percent overall
(17.3 percent for men and 9.1 percent for women).
Unionized workers
are 28.2 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health
insurance and 53.9 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions.
From 1973 to 2011,
the share of the workforce represented by unions declined from 26.7 percent to
13.1 percent.
The decline of
unions has affected middle-wage men more than any other group and explains
about three-fourths of the expanded wage gap between white- and blue-collar men
and over a fifth of the expanded wage gap between high school– and
college-educated men from 1978 to 2011.
An expanded analysis
that includes the direct and norm-setting impact of unions shows that
deunionization can explain about a third of the entire growth of wage
inequality among men and around a fifth of the growth among women from 1973 to
2007.
Research covered in this publication will be included in the
12th edition of EPI’s The State of Working America, which will be released on
Tuesday, September 11. Click here to read more previews from the forthcoming
book.
Declining unionization
The percentage of the workforce represented by unions was
stable in the 1970s but fell rapidly in the 1980s and continued to fall in the
1990s and the early 2000s, as shown in Figure A. This falling rate of
unionization has lowered wages, not only because some workers no longer receive
the higher union wage but also because there is less pressure on nonunion
employers to raise wages; the spillover or threat effect of unionism and the
ability of unions to set labor standards have both declined. The possibility
that union bargaining power has weakened adds a qualitative shift to the
quantitative decline. This erosion of bargaining power is partially related to
a harsher economic context for unions because of trade pressures, the shift to
services, and ongoing technological change. However, analysts have also
pointed to other factors, such as employers’ militant stance against unions and
changes in the application and administration of labor law, that have helped to
weaken unions and their ability to raise wages.
Figure A
Union coverage rate in the United States, 1973–2011
Union coverage rate in the United States, 1973–2011
Source: Author's analysis of Hirsch and Macpherson (2003)
and updates from the Union Membership and Coverage Database
Share Tweet
Embed Download image
Union wage and benefits premium
Table 1 presents estimates of the union wage premium
computed to reflect differences in hourly wages between union and nonunion
workers who are otherwise comparable in experience, education, region,
industry, occupation, and marital status. The union premium is presented as the
extra dollars per hour and the percentage-higher wage earned by those covered
by a collective bargaining contract. This methodology yields a union premium
of 13.6 percent overall—17.3 percent for men and 9.1 percent for women.
Table 1
Union wage premium by demographic group, 2011
Demographic group Percent union* Union premium** Dollars Percent Total 13.0% $1.24 13.6%
Men 13.5 2.21 17.3
Women 12.5
0.67 9.1
White 13.3% $0.76 10.9%
Men 14.1 1.79 14.9
Women 12.5
0.18 7.0
Black 15.0% $2.60 17.3%
Men 15.8 3.05 20.3
Women 14.4
2.25 14.8
Hispanic 10.8%
$3.44 23.1%
Men 10.8 4.77 29.3
Women 10.7
2.06 15.7
Asian 11.1% $1.54 14.7%
Men 9.9 1.53 16.6
Women 12.4
1.61 12.9
New immigrants (less than 10 years)
Men 5.4% $0.49 16.0%
Women 7.0
2.74 16.2
Other immigrants (more than 10 years)
Men 10.4% $2.13 16.7%
Women 12.7
0.57 8.8
* Union member or covered by a collective bargaining
agreement
** Regression-adjusted hourly wage advantage of being in a
union, controlling for experience, education, region, industry, occupation,
race/ethnicity, and marital status
Source: Author's analysis of Current Population Survey
Outgoing Rotation Group microdata
Share Tweet
Embed Download image
Sizable differences exist in union wage premiums across
demographic groups, with blacks and Hispanics having union premiums of 17.3
percent and 23.1 percent, respectively, far higher than the 10.9 percent union
premium for whites. Consequently, unions raise the wages of minorities more
than of whites (the wage effect of unionism on a group is calculated as the
unionism rate times the union premium), helping to close racial/ethnic wage
gaps. Hispanic and black men tend to reap the greatest wage advantage from
unionism, though minority women have substantially higher union premiums than
their white counterparts. Unionized Asians have a wage premium somewhat higher
than that of whites.
(More pages come after this one.)
The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions In
The U.S.
From the 1830s until 2012 (but mostly the 1930s-1980s)
by G. William Domhoff
The heart of this document focuses on the unlikely set of
events leading to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935
(NLRA). The NLRA was a major turning point in American labor history because it
was supposed to put the power of government behind the right of workers to organize
unions and bargain collectively with their employers about wages, hours, and
working conditions.
Whatever the NLRA's shortcomings and long-term failures, it
changed the American power structure for the next 50 years. In telling this
story, the document shows that corporate moderates had more of a role in
creating the legislation than is usually understood, even though they fiercely
opposed its final form. Then the document goes on to explain how and why the
act was all but dead by 1978 due to an all-out and unrelenting battle against
it by the entire corporate community from the day it was passed, and then
finally killed in the 1980s. The account ends in 2012 through a quick overview
of a failed legislative issue initiative in 2009 and information on the
declining figures on "union density" (the percentage of wage and
salary workers in unions). By then the figure was as low as it was in 1916.
But why do workers want unions in the first place, and why
do business owners resist them so mightily? Workers originally want unions
primarily for defensive purposes -- to protect against what they see as
arbitrary decisions, such as sudden wage cuts, lay-offs, or firings. They also
want a way to force management to change what they see as dangerous working
conditions or overly long hours. More generally, they want more certainty,
which eventually means a contract that lasts for a specified period of time. In
the United States, as we will see, the early trade unionists also wanted the
same kind of rights at work that they already had as independent citizens. And
if unions grow strong, then, well, they try to go on the offensive, by asking
for higher wages.
Business owners, on the other hand, don't like unions for a
variety of reasons. If they are going to compete successfully in an economy
that can go boom or bust, then they need a great deal of flexibility in cutting
wages, hiring and firing, and adding extra hours of work or trimming back work
hours when need be. In fact, wages and salaries are a very big part of their
overall costs, maybe as much as 80% in many industries in the past, and still
above 50% in most industries today, although there is variation. And even when
business is good, small wage cuts, or holding the line on wages, can lead to
higher profits. More generally, business owners are used to being in charge,
and they don't want to be hassled by people they have come to think of as mere
employees, not as breadwinners for their families or citizens of the same city
and country.
Thus, the nature of the economic system means that there is
going to be at least some degree of conflict over a wide range of issues
between owners/managers and employees/workers. These conflicts are therefore
best described as class conflicts because the two sides have many conflicting
objectives even though they have to cooperate to keep the company going. The
conflicts that these disagreements generate can manifest themselves in many
different ways in a step-by-step escalation: workplace protests, strikes,
industry wide boycotts, massive demonstrations in cities, pressure on Congress,
and voting preferences. All this soon leads to more general disagreements over
the rate and progressivity of taxation, the usefulness of labor unions, and the
degree to which business should be regulated by government. Employees want
businesses to pay higher taxes to government, and they often want government to
regulate businesses in ways that help employees. Most businesses reject these
policy objectives -- they are for low taxes on businesses, minimum regulation
of their businesses, and no government help for unions.
Despite the greater power of employers, sometimes workers
are able to form unions and win contracts for two reasons. First, protests and
strikes by workers in some occupations succeed because the "replacement
costs" for bringing in strikebreakers and replacement workers are very
high (Kimeldorf 1999; 2013). Sometimes replacement costs are high due to skill
barriers, as in the case of printers in decades gone by or professional sports
players today (who have some of the strongest unions in the country, which is
why they make big money, not just because they are sterling athletes).
Replacement costs also can be high for companies that have fast turn-around
times, such as shipping and railroads in the past, or UPS today, which is why
UPS drivers have been able to maintain a strong union and keep their wages
high. And in the past it was often impossible to recruit strikebreakers and
replacement workers due to the geographic isolation of the workplace (e.g.,
mining, logging, and other extractive industries). For example, you could get
killed by strikers for being a replacement worker in a coal mine in unfamiliar
hill country far from your urban upbringing.
If replacement costs are high, then sometimes the use of
violence can play a role in organizing a union, but mostly as a means of
keeping replacement workers from entering job sites, not as a primary strategy.
Most of this violence is between strikers and scabs, or police and strikers,
with destruction of equipment and other forms of sabotage relatively rare even
though it is sometimes threatened. However, some skilled workers, such as
construction workers of various kinds, were able to do a lot of damage if they
decided to sabotage equipment or destroy what they had partially built.
The second way workers can have success in creating unions
through sit-downs, strikes, and other forms of disruption is if the government
imposes restrictions on violence by employers, of which there was plenty between
1877 and 1937. In this case, the government may be acting to keep the economy
from going into depression, or more likely, to make sure that the government
has the war materiel it needs, as during World War I and World War II. But the
government usually doesn't side with the workers if the workers don't have some
political power through their involvement in a political party.
If workers do succeed in unionizing, as a little over
one-third of wage and salary workers did between 1935 and 1945, then there's one
kind of contract that corporations really came to despise in the 1960s and
1970s. It's one that runs for several years and has an annual
cost-of-living-adjustment ("COLA") built into it. Employers dislike
COLA's because they create inflationary spirals if some separate factor, such
as increased demand for products, or unexpected increases in the cost of raw
materials, triggers inflation. When there's no COLA, inflation is partly tamed
by holding wages steady, or even cutting them, but employers can't do that when
there are COLA's.
Hopefully, this quick overview of why there's a big battle
over unions should make the story that unfolds fairly easy to understand, even
though there's always some further details or unexpected events. But before we
get to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in the 1930s, and the
aftermath of that unique legislation, it's necessary to have some historical
context on the pitched battles of that era, so the story begins in the 1830s.
Along the way, it makes a few comparisons with successful unionization efforts
in many European countries, which provide the context that is needed to explain
why unionization had so little success in the United States, except from the
late 1930s to the mid-1970s.
(There are several pages after this.)
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10488702/15855239.doc?sequence=1byRBFREEMAN-2013
Do Labor Unions Have a Future in the United States?
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10488702/15855239.doc?sequence=1byRBFREEMAN-2013
Do Labor Unions Have a Future in the United States?
Richard B. Freeman
and Kelsey Hilbrich
In
summer 2011 a labor dispute between National Football League owners and players
threatened to derail the 2011 NFL season. The collective bargaining agreement
between owners and the NFL players union
had run out. To force players to take a smaller share of football's nine billion
dollars of annual revenue and to accept an increased number of games in a
season – which risked the health and safety of players and the length of their careers --
the owners closed the workplace and
stopped paying salaries. A similar dispute in the National Basketball
Association led NBA owners to lockout workers, remove information about them
from team Web pages, and stop paying their salaries. In most disputes between
management and labor, workers strike until they and their employer reach
agreement over pay and the terms of work. But sometimes, as in the NFL and NBA
disputes, owners lock out workers to pressure the workers to accept what the
owners want.[i]
Not
so long ago, unions and collective bargaining touched the lives of virtually
all Americans. Unions negotiated with management the wages and
working conditions of a large proportion of the US work force and influenced
the wages and conditions of many nonunion workers and firms as well. In 1955,
when the two major US labor federations, the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) merged to form a single
federation , the AFL-CIO, about 38% of workers in the private sector were
covered by collective contracts. If you
were not a union member, someone in your family or someone on the street where
you lived was a member. If you managed a
large firm, some part of your firm dealt with unionized workers. If your firm was nonunion and wished to
remain so you paid close attention to collective agreements between unions and
other firms. Matching negotiated
improvements in wages and benefits could keep your employees happy and
nonunion.
The
labor scene in 2011 was markedly different than in the 1950s and 1960s. Unions and collective bargaining covered a
small and declining share of private sector workers. In 2011 just 6.9 percent of private sector
workers were in unions, the smallest percentage since 1900. In some parts of the country, such as North
Carolina, Tennessee, or South Dakota, the proportion of private sector workers
unionized was 3% or less and falling.[ii]
With so few unionized workers in the private sector the only connection many
people had to unions was through the products made by union workers: as sports
fans during the NFL or NBA disputes, or as fans of weekly TV series delayed during
the 2007-2008 season, when film, television and radio writers struck to gain a bigger share of compensation from
new media forms.[iii]
In 2011
workers in the public sector, virtually none of whom were organized in the
1950s, made up the majority of union members.
Unionization of workers local, state, and federal governments unionized
rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s so that 37% were union members in 2011 – a
proportion over five times that in the private sector. The typical union member
was teacher, policeman, firefighter, or other city or state employee rather
than an automobile worker, steelworker, or construction worker.[iv]
The
laws that regulate unions and collective bargaining differ between the private
sector and the public sector. National
law in the form of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) governs private
sector labor management relations. State
law, which differs by state, governs
labor-management relations for the state and local employees who make up
most public sector workers.[v] Hawaii, New York, California, Massachusetts,
and many other states have laws favorable to public sector collective
bargaining, with the result that most of their public sector workers have union
contracts. Other states such as Alabama,Virginia, Texas, and South
Carolina discourage public sector collective bargaining so that few if any of their public sector
workers have collective agreements with their employers. Among teachers, for
instance, collective bargaining determines the pay and working conditions of
95% of elementary and secondary school teachers in New York and 98% in
Massachusetts while it determines pay and conditions for only 2% of the
teachers in Alabama and 0% in Texas.[vi]
Following a conservative tide in the 2010
elections, public sector unions and collective bargaining came under
attack. The 2008-2009 recession and weak
recovery had reduced state and local revenues throughout the country and
squeezed government budgets. Arguing
that public sector collective bargaining was part of the problem and that
unions hampered state efforts to balance budgets, the newly ascendent
conservatives sought to dislodge unions from their one remaining
stronghold. The efforts of Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature gained even more attention than
the NFL and NBA lockouts. Democrat
legislators opposed to Walker's bill left the state to prevent the legislature
having the quorum necessary to enact the law. Union supporters demonstrated in
the state capital against the bill. The
legislation eventually passed at a midnight meeting. Ohio enacted a similar
law, and conservative Republicans in many states introduced comparable bills to weaken public sector collective bargaining. Democrats opposed the legislation, which
created the greatest partisan division over unions and bargaining in U.S.
history.
The
precipitous drop in private sector union density and the effort to eliminate
public sector collective bargaining raise the title question of this
essay. Extrapolating the decline of
private sector unions, many labor and management experts believe that unions
have little or no future. Extrapolating
the effort to weaken public sector collective bargaining, many analysts wonder
whether public sector unions can survive
in a era of weak private sector unions, political polarization, and fiscal
austerity.
But
extrapolating trends is not a reliable way to answer our title question. In 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression,
the President of the American Economic Association, one of the country's top
experts in unionism, predicted that unionism, which had been losing membership
throughout the roaring 1920s, could not possibly expand in the depressed 1930s.[vii] This was just before unions had their
greatest growth of membership in US history. In 1955 the President of the
AFL-CIO, the top union leader in the country, dismissed unionization in the
public sector on the grounds that “It is impossible to bargain collectively
with the government.”[viii] A
decade later unions began their growth spurt in the public sector.
To
answer our title question we must look beyond extrapolations to the
reasons why workers form unions, the way
workers who want unions gain recognition from employers and collective
bargaining contracts, and the attitudes of workers and business to unions .
Why do workers form a a union?
The main reason workers form
unions is that they have interests in common that a union can help
advance. These interests range from the
physical conditions at the workplace to company-wide policies regarding wages
and benefits ranging from family leave to vacation time to health care
insurance and company pensions. By
conveying their collective concerns to employers, unions influence the terms
and conditions at work. This is the collective voice channel of unionism; voice
referring to the channel of communication and discussion on issues where
management would otherwise make unilateral decisions; collective referring to
the fact that the mechanism is through the elected union officials who represent
workers as a group.[ix]
The second reason for forming a union is that
bargaining as a group gives workers greater clout with an employer than
bargaining individually. When workers
are organized at a workplace, the union has some monopoly power with which to
bargain for workers' interests against management, which invariably holds the
upper hand in the firm. Negotiating
with management as a group puts greater
pressure on the employer than do individual workers bringing up an issue by
themselves.
The
history of unions in the US is a story of workers' struggle to organize unions
and convince or force employers to recognize them for bargaining. From the early days of the Republic through
enactment of the National Labor Relations Act, the way workers got management
to recognize and negotiate with a union was through economic force. This often led to violent battles between the
two sides. Firms would hire security
guards and call in strikebreakers. If a
dispute got particularly violent, the police, the National Guard, or even
federal troops would intervene, almost always to support the employer. According to historians Philip Taft and
Philip Ross, “The United States has experienced more frequent and bloody labor
violence than any other industrial nation” with the “most virulent form of
industrial violence [occurring] in situations in which efforts were made to
destroy a functioning union or to deny a union recognition.”[x]
The
Depression sparked an upsurge of worker desires for unions. It may seem odd that workers would seek to
unionize in a period of high joblessness
when most efforts to unionize in
better economic times had failed. But
the Depression destroyed faith in business leadership and convinced many
workers that unions offered the only way to improve their standard of
life. Leaders of the AFL, the sole labor
federation at the time, argued over how best to help workers organize. Most believed that only skilled craft workers
had the economic muscle to win battles against management and shied away from
organizing less skilled workers into unions based on the industry that employed
them. Arguing for industrial unionism
at the 1935 AFL Convention, United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis punched
Carpenters Union President Bill Hutcheson,[xi]
then led the unions favoring industrial unionism out of the convention to form
a new federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Organizing in the
US thus involved battles not only between workers and firms but between rival
union groups.
The
ensuing effort to organize industrial workers fits with the violent history of
organizing in earlier periods. In one
famous incident the United Auto Workers initiated a sit-down strikes against
General Motors, in which workers occupied their workplace rather than leaving
it. The company called on the police and National Guard to remove the workers,
which produced a 40 day “Battle of the Running Bulls” in Flint Michigan.[xii] The Roosevelt Administration proposed and
Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 to shift organizing
from the streets to the ballot box. The
Act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to organize
government sponsored secret ballot elections at workplaces for workers could
vote for or against having a union. The Supreme Court declared the Act
constitutional in 1937.
(There are pages after this.)
Students prepare to help schools in Africa
By Cecilia Nasmith, Northumberland Today
Monday, December 26, 2016 5:59:39 EST PM
CECILIA NASMITH/Northumberland Today
Cobourg Collegiate Institute Principal Jeff Kawzenuk and
Grade 10 student Kylie Dennis visited Baltimore Public School on Thursday to
accept a cheque in support of the children of Tanzania. The money was raised
thanks to several popular and successful fundraising initiatives organized by
Grade 5 student Carson Grimes, so Kawzenuk brought along a thank-you gift from
Africa รณ a beautiful fabric print in oranges and browns with African animals
and trees in dramatic silhouette. CECILIA NASMITH/Northumberland Today
BALTIMORE - In Africa, the schools are so poor that there is
no playground equipment.
In fact, in order to play the soccer they love, students
often scrounge up old discarded plastic bags and tie them all together into a
rough spherical shape — because there is no money for a soccer ball.
Cobourg Collegiate Institute principal Jeff Kawzenuk shared
this information at an assembly at Baltimore Public School on Thursday, where
he accepted a donation of about $900 that the students had raised through a
variety of fundraisers over the semester.
Kawzenuk brought along Grade 10 student Kylie Dennis, a
Baltimore Public School alumna who will soon accompany a group of 16 other
students Kawzenuk is taking on his annual Journey of Hope to Kilema, Tanzania.
The funds the Baltimore students raised were to support the group’s work with
orphaned children.
One of their key tasks is ensuring these children are
educated. As Kawzenuk said to a school assembly, only about one in four African
children goes to school, because school is not free and their parents don’t
have enough money to send them.
“Also, their schools are nothing like this. Many of their
schools don’t even have washrooms. One of our projects this year is building a
school their own washroom,” Kawzenuk told the students.
“We are also taking some computers to start some computer
programs.
“Pencils, paper, erasers — sometimes they don’t even have
these, so we are taking school supplies too.”
Kawzenuk had heard the story of how the fundraising began
when Grade 5 student Carson Grimes asked his teacher Christine Proulx what they
could do to give back. Proulx had heard from Kylie (her former pupil) about
collecting school supplies, so she put the two together to brainstorm on
fundraising ideas.
Kylie told the assembly how she’d had a similar impulse to
make a difference in the world at age five.
“I wanted to do things for kids who are less fortunate than
us, like Carson,” she said.
“I love school, so I decided I wanted to send kids to
school. So I made a fundraiser called Taste of Africa.”
This became an annual event at St. Peter’s Anglican Church
in Cobourg, an African-themed evening of food, entertainment and silent auction
that supported AIDS orphans in Malawi through the church’s partnership with St.
Mark’s Church in Mzuzu.
“When I came to high school, I had the opportunity of
applying to go on this amazing Journey of Hope to Africa. And when I got
accepted, I’m not going to lie — I cried a little. It’s a dream come true,”
Kylie said.
What she is most excited about is the chance to meet with
the kids and teach them — “because one day I hope to travel the world and
become a teacher.”
Kylie pointed out that each student who goes will also be
fundraising just for the $5,000 to travel to Africa, pay for their
accommodations and take time for a safari (just to do something for
themselves).
She is grateful to all the people at St. Peter’s who
supported her in this effort.
Tanzania is on the east coast of Africa. The brief film
Kawzenuk ran for the kids showed their 2015 trip and the local high-school
students in their PHHS and ENSS T-shirts (from Port Hope High School and
Brighton’s East Northumberland Secondary School) as they worked and played with
the children.
The 17-day 2017 trip begins Jan. 17. Kawzenuk shared details
of what a trek it is to get there, starting with the drive to the Toronto
airport.
They fly about 8.5 hours to Amsterdam, wait in the airport
six hours, then take the 11-hour flight to Mt. Kilimanjaro International
Airport in Tanzania. A two-hour bus ride takes them to their hotel and, the
next day, they report to work in Kilema — a bus ride of about 2.5 hours.
This will be Kawzenuk’s 10th Journey of Hope. He has raised
about $25,000 for their work this year alone but, over the whole decade, they
have raised well over $250,000.
“I absolutely love it there,” he declared.
“When we go to Africa and we do a project and we can see how
it affects young children and changes their lives — when I see that, I know
that all the work we put into that project is well worth it.”
Baltimore principal Pam Buttery expressed the hope that,
once she’s completed her journey, Kylie will return to her alma mater for
another presentation to share her experiences.
cnasmith@postmedia.com
twitter.com/NTcnasmith
(This
blog includes a few articles in support of First Nations in Canada
because a substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic got his start
teaching in a fly-in First Nations community and he asked me to include
some articles in support of such communities.)
The big stories of 2016: Photographer
Julie Oliver on the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat
The Ottawa Citizen
Published on: December 28, 2016 | Last Updated: December 28,
2016 7:18 PM EST
Attawapiskat: A photographer reflects
What story will photographer Julie Oliver remember most from
this past year?
She says it’s her trip to the northern indigenous community
of Attawapiskat last spring, which was in the grip of a horrific suicide crisis
among its children and youth.
Read our stories on it and see Julie’s compelling photos:
A candlelight prayer vigil was held as darkness fell over
Attawapiskat on Friday, April 15, 2016, with about 70 residents praying and
singing as they walked through the streets.
‘Busy night at the hospital. Pray for Attawapiskat’
People walk through Attawapiskat, a northern Ontario
indigenous community.
Attawapiskat youth fight for survival: ‘We are all scared
for them’
Signs from kids in the community presented at a youth forum
Thursday, April 14, 2016. In the wake an epidemic of suicide attempts in
Attawapiskat - including 11 young people last Saturday and a foiled suicide
pact earlier this week - this remote northern Ontario reserve of 2,000 people
declared a state of emergency over the weekend. (JULIE OLIVER/POSTMEDIA)
Signs from kids in the community presented at a youth forum
Thursday, April 14, 2016. Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen
Five more Attawapiskat kids attempted suicide on Friday
evening, chief says
Syvanna Koostachin had four friends who tried to commit
suicide during the suicide pact this past Monday. Only 17 years old, she has
attempted suicide multiple times herself, she says. "I just wanted to end
the pain," referring to "family problems" and "being
bullied." However, now she says "suicide is not the answer" and
is scared for some of her friends. In the wake an epidemic of suicide attempts
in Attawapiskat - including 11 young people last Saturday and a foiled suicide
pact earlier this week - this remote northern Ontario reserve of 2,000 people
declared a state of emergency over the weekend. (JULIE OLIVER/POSTMEDIA)
Syvanna Koostachin had four friends who tried to commit
suicide during the suicide pact this past Monday. Only 17 years old, she has
attempted suicide multiple times herself, she says. “I just wanted to end the
pain,” referring to “family problems” and “being bullied.” However, now she
says “suicide is not the answer” and is scared for some of her friends. In the
wake an epidemic of suicide attempts in Attawapiskat – including 11 young
people last Saturday and a foiled suicide pact earlier this week – this remote
northern Ontario reserve of 2,000 people declared a state of emergency over the
weekend. (JULIE OLIVER/POSTMEDIA) Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen
Julie is also the photographer who has given us an intimate
look into the life of Jonathan Pitre, Ottawa’s Butterfly Boy.
Many of Julie’s best photos of Pitre can be seen in this
essay by reporter Andrew Duffy.
Duffy also told us about his most memorable experience of
2016, which came on Thanksgiving Day, when he received news from Pitre’s mother
that a crucial stem cell operation had failed.
And don’t miss our collection of our best read stories from
2016, from sinkholes to gold smugglers.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/12/26/a-display-of-humanity-in-sock-drive-for-troubled-first-nation.htmlA display of humanity in sock drive for northern
Ontario First Nation community
Behind humble shipment of hosiery heading to a northern
Ontario reserve are the good intentions of a teacher, a family friend, a
trucking executive and a police officer.
Jordan Doner is a science teacher at the school in
Pikangikum First Nation. He and his wife Rachel inspired a family friend to
collect donations of socks to be shipped to the community. Rachel is also
collecting girls' prom dresses for the first graduating class in the newly
built school on the reserve. (Salvatore
Sacco / For The Toronto Star)
By Allan Woods Quebec Bureau
Mon., Dec. 26, 2016
When you think about the needs of the people of the
Pikangikum First Nation, many things come to mind.
A pair of socks might not be the first among them.
The community needs a stable power supply, particularly to
endure the harsh northern Ontario winters. That would be a good start.
The 2,700 indigenous people who call Pikangikum home have
been waiting ages for a new water system for sanitation and drinking water.
Despite a decade of promises made and delayed by the federal government, they
currently have to use an outdoor pumping station for drinking water.
And access to better health services and crisis counselling
might be welcomed, particularly among those touched by the deaths of several
young people who have taken their lives since the fall.
But, yes, Pikangikum also needs socks. And this winter,
thanks to a young Whitby couple resident in the community for several months —
and an Oshawa woman who was inspired by them — they’ll be getting about 2,000
pairs.
The couple is Jordan Doner, a science teacher at the
Eenchokay Birchstick School, and his wife, Rachel. They moved to Pikangikum in
August after he was hired on a contract to teach at the community’s new school,
built after the old school was destroyed in a 2007 fire.
The Doners say they have been thrilled by their experience
thus far — by the warmth and generosity of the local population — even though
the hardships of life on a northern reserve are everywhere.
“There is a laundry facility but to do laundry you have to
go there and when it’s minus-30 it’s not the most convenient to get in your
truck or hop on your ATV and go to a laundry facility,” said Jordan, 23. “So to
have a couple of extra pairs of socks is very beneficial.”
Behind the humble shipment of hosiery that is expected to
begin its journey as early as next week, there are the good intentions of a
handful of random and otherwise unconnected individuals — including a trucking
executive, friends of the Doners and an Ontario Provincial Police officer —
whose sense of civic duty has them pulling in the same direction.
Terrol Maciver is behind an initiative collecting donated
socks for the Pikangikum First Nation in northern Ontario. (Salvatore Sacco/ FOR THE TORONTO STAR)
The driving force is Terrol Maciver, an Oshawa woman who
started collecting donations of socks for the homeless in 2014 in an effort to
make her little corner of the world a better place.
That first year, Maciver set out to collect 2,014 pairs of
socks and ended up with 5,000. Since then, her local initiative has branched
out to more than a dozen other Ontario towns.
But when she heard through her church this summer that
Jordan and Rachel would be moving to Pikangikum with their newborn son,
Malachi, Maciver set a goal to send up 2,000 pairs of socks from the 15,000
that have so far been collected from across the province.
“Socks are the most needed and the least donated item,”
Maciver said. “Everyone needs socks because they wear out. They’re as
consumable as food.”
Her call for socks on the “Pairs for Pikangikum” Facebook
page has resulted in deliveries arriving at the optometrist’s office where
Maciver works. On other days, she has arrived home after work to find donations
lying at her doorstep.
But Maciver might have been stuck with the contributions had
it not been for a chance encounter with a retired trucking executive,
82-year-old Ross Mackie, in the parking lot of a local Tim Hortons. They got to
talking. She mentioned that she was collecting socks. He said he could help.
Norm Mackie, president of the Oshawa-based, family-run
Mackie Moving Systems, said his company will be transporting the socks on their
first leg of their trip north, to Thunder Bay, in the next week or so.
Although the offer to ship the socks was a personal deal,
Mackie’s company regularly helps transport donated items for free or at reduced
rates through the Trucks for Change non-profit group, which was started in 2011
and is made up of 60 trucking companies and more than 20 registered charities
across Canada. The organization acts like a dispatcher, putting charities in
need of transport in touch with companies that have space in their trailers.
“We can’t help out every time, but we try to help when we
can,” said Mackie.
Once the shipment of socks is on the truck, it will make its
way to Red Lake, which is the closest community to Pikangikum that can be
reached by all-weather road. Once the ice road that connects the first nations
community to Red Lake has formed and solidified — letting vehicle traffic reach
the reserve — the socks will complete the final leg of their journey, likely in
January.
They will probably get some help along the way from OPP Sgt.
Chris Amell. The co-ordinator of the federally funded crime-prevention
initiative, Project Journey, is based at the provincial police detachment in
Red Lake, but works closely with Pikangikum’s youth to work on community
projects.
The arrival of donated goods is a perfect opportunity to
pass on a message, said Amell.
“We’ll partner with anybody and we take that opportunity to
get the youth to learn about community service and volunteerism and use them to
help with the distribution and be part of something bigger,” he said.
Project Journey has gotten involved in the past when donated
clothing has arrived in the community, such as with shipments of hockey
equipment for young people. If Rachel Doner has her way, they may also be doing
it in the months ahead with frilly, fancy graduation dresses.
What started with pressure from her parents to clean out her
closet ahead of a move to a new home has turned into another clothing drive.
This time, the goal is to ensure that the girls who will be part of the first
class to graduate from Pikangikum’s newly built school can celebrate their
achievement in style.
Like many of her friends back home, Rachel, 23, had several
formal dresses from graduations and bridal parties that she had worn once and
stuffed away in a closet, unlikely to be worn again.
For graduating students in Pikangikum, a prom dress means a
four-hour drive to the closest big town, Kenora, or a pricey online purchase
that cannot be tried and takes three weeks to deliver, she said.
“With a lot of my friends, we have at least four of them and
it’s doesn’t really mean anything to get rid of because we’re not going to use
them again. But it’s such a blessing to girls who don’t have one,” she said.
Pikangikum Chief Dean Owen and Kyle Peters, director of the
Pikangikum Education Authority, did not respond to interview requests for this
article.
The donations are welcomed in Pikangikum, said Jordan Doner,
but the community doesn’t want peoples’ pity. If the roles were reversed — if
it were Pikangikum blessed with ease and abundance and southern communities
struggling — he said the people of his adopted temporary hometown wouldn’t
hesitate to do the same thing.
“People in Pikangikum are some of the nicest people I’ve
ever met. People are willing to go out of their way to help you any time. If
you need a drive somewhere, they say, ‘Hey, I’ll drive you,’ even if it’s not
on their way,” he said.
“The people are really thankful (for the donated items). But
I think the biggest thing is they want to feel like they’re part of Canada and
not forgotten about. And at the same time they want to be respected as people.”
Sask. First Nation to receive $4.5M compensation for
treaty money withheld 130 years ago: lawyers
Lawyers for Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation announce
payment for money withheld after Riel Rebellion
CBC News Posted: Dec 27, 2016 11:11 AM CT Last Updated: Dec
27, 2016 1:14 PM CT
Lawyer Ron S. Maurice, Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation
Chief Rick Gamble and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby
Cameron at a news conference in Saskatoon on Tuesday. (Dan Zakreski/CBC News)
Money coming for First Nation punished in 1885 Rebellion
Lawyers for a Saskatchewan First Nation say the federal
government has been ordered to pay $4.5 million as compensation for treaty
money withheld by the Crown after the Riel Rebellion.
Chief Rick Gamble from Beardy's and Okemasis joined lawyer
Ron Maurice and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron
at a news conference on Tuesday. Maurice told reporters that the Specific
Claims Tribunal had ruled the sum should be paid to the Beardy's and Okemasis
First Nation.
Money coming for First Nation punished in 1885 Rebellion
It said the money was compensation for $4,250 in treaty
money that the Crown illegally withheld from band members between 1885 to 1888,
after the Riel Rebellion.
Maurice said the decision follows the Tribunal's earlier
finding that the Crown breached its lawful obligation to make yearly treaty
payments of $5 per person, called "annuities", to starving members of
the Beardy's and Okemasis Bands in the four years following the 1885 Riel
Rebellion.
"The decision was released on Friday that basically
awards Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation $4.5 million as compensation for
losses relating to the 1885 rebellion," Maurice said.
Both Ottawa and the First Nation have a month to appeal.
Maurice said 131 years is long enough.
"Of course our intent is really just to march forward
and try to bring this to a resolution as quickly as possible."
