DEC Health and Safety protocols - Will they remain in effect?
OPSEU, through a memorandum of settlement at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), has negotiated Health and Safety protocols for Driver Examiners, after work refusals on G2 tests. But these protocols on life-and-death issues could be threatened if you don’t have a Collective Agreement with Serco.
Current Health and Safety protocols include:
• Detailed Out of Order (O-O-O) criteria for allowing an examiner to refuse a test if a motor vehicle is unsafe;
• Accepting of Highway Traffic Act (H.T.A.) Regulation 611 - vehicle safety standards as the benchmark for safe condition of applicant vehicles;
• Pre-trip inspection requirement to allow examiners to inspect for vehicle defects;
• Improved G2 test procedure policy language allowing examiners to monitor traffic conditions prior to conducting rigid applicant observation and assessment requirements;
• Enhanced road check criteria for cancellation of tests in bad weather;
• Enhanced intervention training, (how to recognize a dangerous action and react to it);
• Terms of reference of the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee operation and structure.
• Changes to G2 road test policies including allowing the examiner to refuse a road test if the driver does not have enough highway experience;
• Access by examiners to driver history, such as previous number of unsuccessful road tests.
• Employer provides seasonal protection such as sunglasses, sunscreen, headwear, gloves; winter apparel.
• Additional protection against SARS;
Issues still before the OLRB include ergonomic evaluations of G2 tests, and safe procedures for making sure the emergency hand brake works before starting a road test.
Driver examiners are concerned that these policies and procedures might no longer exist once the operation of the DECs is taken over by Serco.
Will Serco insist driver examiners perform road tests in unsafe vehicles, simply to reduce the waiting lists? Will they provide Personal Protective Equipment to driver examiners centre staff? Will Serco top up the 85 per cent wage cap on Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) benefits to injured workers? Will Serco
provide suitable work accommodation for injured workers?
More questions for Serco
Will Serco have trained Health and Safety representatives at the work site? Will they allow examiners to ensure applicants have the required insurance on the test vehicle? Will SERCO pay employees required to go into self-quarantine if exposed to SARS while at work? Will SERCO adhere to the principle of due diligence in
areas of Health and Safety for driver examiners? What assurance will examiners have that they will not be faced with greater dangers that are already inherent with their duties? Will SERCO adopt the current safe guards related to health and safety achieved by our members once they take over?
It’s time for driver examiners to follow their own advice, “before you proceed, make sure it’s safe to do so!” These are dangerous jobs. Our members are constantly at risk. Many questions concerning your safety remain unanswered!
We need the protection of a Collective Agreement and a strong voice to ensure that there are ways and means to address health and safety issues in a meaningful way.
Your Ministry Advisory Committee (MAC) members on Health and Safety issues are, Linda Thibert, John O’Brien, and Stefan Michnowiec.
Serco turns nukes, jails into profits
OPSEU thinks it’s important for you to get to know the new employer. We know the Ontario government was so desperate to balance its budget, it virtually gave away the contract to run driver examiner services. They sold the rights for ten years to a company that has made fistfuls of money in “outsourcing” of public
services and “private-public partnerships” in Britain and in other countries around the world. Serco delivers services cheaply and make huge profits by cutting payroll costs. And by getting involved in just about anything. Manufacturing nuclear weapons? Serco does that. Incarcerating children? Jailing innocent asylum-seekers? Serco does that too.
Shock and “AWE”
Serco is part of a British partnership that owns Atomic Weapons Establishment, or AWE, a company which manufactures nuclear weapons in the Aldermaston facility near Reading, England. Not many companies in the world can make this claim. In fact, 101 entire countries are nuclear free zones.
Trident Ploughshares, a British peace group, says AWE is covertly developing the next generation of illegal weapons of mass destruction in direct contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Geneva Convention and international law. Their newsletter, Speed the Plough, provides some interesting reading at:
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/spedplog/stp15.php
Tony Blair’s favorite jailer?
Serco runs all kinds of facilities in the UK, from prisons to an immigration centre where they reap huge profits from public services. They do whatever Tony Blair’s government no longer wants to do. The Red Pepper, a UK magazine, does not mince words: “Children living in Walsall, near Birmingham, are taught in Serco
schools (under) the Local Education Authority. If they were arrested up the road in Staffordshire, they would be held in cells by Serco detention staff, since the firm signed an ‘outsourcing’ deal with the local police. Should they be sent to prison, they could serve time at Serco’s new 800 bed Dovegate prison, also in Staffordshire. If they were too
young for jail they could be sent to a Serco youth detention centre.” See more at:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/KYE/x-kye-Sep2002.html
A prison for refugees
Here’s another profitable Serco venture. Dungavel Prison in Scotland is run by Premier Prison Services of which Serco is part owner. It holds inmates who have committed no crime. Nor are they accused of a crime. They are refugees.
An independent report by Scottish academics Phil Taylor and Christine Cooper at: http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/Cooper&Taylor.pdf condemns this facility. “The establishment of Scotland’s first detention centre is an abuse of the
human rights of asylum seekers. It criminalizes and degrades people who have fled tyranny and oppression, many of whom have been deeply traumatized by the horrors inflicted on them and their families. Rather than finding refuge and freedom, these imprisoned asylum seekers now face a further denial of their right to freedom from oppression.”
“Children incarcerated with their parents”
Scottish activist Mark Brown, from the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome refugees said “Children are going to be incarcerated in Dungavel with their parents. People are being put behind bars and barbed wire without ever having committed a crime.” Nevertheless, Serco’s Premier Custodial Group will be building another detention
centre in Middlesex which about 30,000 male inmates who have committed no crime will “pass through” each year.
Victory for OPSEU: Special MERC meeting scheduled for DEC issues
The Union filed a grievance against MTO regarding the failure of the employer to meet with our Reasonable Efforts Committee. We have negotiated an agreement at the Grievance Settlement Board (GSB) forcing the Ministry to meet with us.
The Ministry did not want to accept a committee other than the MERC team, but agreed that we could have ‘guests’ from the driver exam area. So, we are meeting as a “Special MERC for Driver Exam (SMDE).” This committee will meet June 16 to discuss issues relevant to the transfer of Driver Examination Services to Serco
DES.
This newsletter
Please forward this newsletter to as many of your colleagues as possible. it may be their only source for the “straight goods” on Serco so they can make an informed decision about their future. Let us know what you want to see in future issues. To receive it by e-mail, send your e-mail address to
dcox@opseu.org .
Contact OPSEU
Organizing: Contact OPSEU at 1-800-268-7376. Organizers for the DEC campaign are Paul Dunseith at ext.355, Ed Ogibowski at ext. 362 and Connie Huziak at ext. 327.
Your Job Security Officer is: Judith Marion, OPSEU x 370 jmarion@opseu.org
Your Reasonable Efforts Committee is: John O’Brien, Hm. (807)-628-8066; cell (807)-628-4364; jobrien2@tbaytel.net ; Gail Kreutzkamp home (519)-742-4017;
gailkreutzkamp@hotmail.com; Stephan Michnowiec, pager, 416-405-0050
Your MERC Team is: John O’Brien (as above), Serge Valcourt (705) 472-7900 x 6490, Robert Houston (519) 372-4045, Peggy Maybury (416) 235-4218. Or contact your Staff Representative or the steward in your workplace.
DEC Notes is published as a regular update for OPSEU staff in Driver Examiner Centres. More information on the government’s planned transfer of services can be viewed at:
http://www.opseu.org/campaign/mtooindex.htm on the OPSEU web site.
Authorized for Distribution:
Leah Casselman, President
