Remarks by Len Hupet, OPSEU First Vice-President/Treasurer, at a news conference at Queen’s Park, Feb. 28, 2001

Good morning. My name is Len Hupet. I am the first Vice-President/Treasurer of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

With me I have Barry Scanlon, chair of our Corrections Ministry Employee Relations Committee, and Mark Dewar, vice-president of OPSEU Local 582 at the Toronto East Detention Centre. Together we have 55 years of experience working as front-line Correctional Officers in Ontario jails.

We are here today because of some comments made by Ontario’s Minister of Corrections, Norm Sterling. Last Thursday, February 22, Sterling decided he was outraged at the use of sick time by correctional officers. He said he was going to post sick-time averages on the Internet, supposedly to "encourage" correctional officers to go in to work when they are sick.

This statement was greeted with absolute outrage by correctional officers across Ontario. Sterling, who has fewer than three months’ experience with the corrections portfolio, knows nothing of the work we do. It would be easy for us to sit here and attack the Minister for his arrogance. Instead, we are here today to help lead him out of his ignorance.

In his remarks last week and this week, Sterling stated that if sick time was not reduced, then his government would move to privatize the entire system, not just the 1,200-bed superjail in Penetanguishene.

We know from experience that both of these so-called "solutions" are in fact treating the symptoms, and not the causes of increased sick time among correctional officers. That’s what we want to talk about here today.

First of all, I want to comment on the Minister’s statement that sick time usage now averages over 20 days per year per correctional officer, and that that number is the same today as it was in 1993. This is not true.

In 1993, sick time usage was under 12 days per correctional officer per year. If it is now at 20, it can only be because of actions taken by this government.

Under federal law, the job of correctional officer is recognized as one of the five most stressful jobs in Canada, along with police officer, firefighter, paramedic, and air traffic controller.

Not everyone can do this job. We don’t expect politicians to walk a mile in our shoes. But we do expect the Minister of Corrections to understand the issues we face, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

For this reason, President Casselman wrote to Minister Sterling yesterday to invite him to participate in a province-wide task force that will explore the root causes of sick time usage under his government.

Beginning in Sudbury tomorrow night, we will visit communities across the province over the next three weeks to talk, face to face, with corrections workers about what’s really going on in correctional services.

We have a few clues about what is actually happening.

Ontario correctional officers are suffering the consequences of this government’s mismanagement. We are speaking out now.

An Ontario jail is not a country club. Many of our 46 facilities hold only maximum-security inmates, both those serving sentences and those on remand awaiting trial or sentencing. Our jails hold murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and other dangerous criminals. Others are dangerous in other ways. The prison population is rife with Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, tuberculosis, HIV, and other contagious diseases.

This has been the case for many years, but under this government the situation has worsened considerably.

The first reason our working conditions have deteriorated is overcrowding. Three jails have already closed, and scores of beds have been closed in other facilities. More inmates are coming in. They are jammed to the rafters.

In many cases, we have three adult males in a cell that is smaller than most bathrooms.

Last year, the government introduced a 12-hour lockdown policy. This means that, instead of having these three inmates cooped up together for eight hours, they are now together for 12. This leads to a huge increase in tension inside the cells.

We have now reached a situation of supercrowding. The Don Jail holds 670 inmates on weekends in a facility designed for 240.

One result of supercrowding is superviolence. Our jails are experiencing more assaults: inmates assaulting inmates, and inmates assaulting correctional officers. We now spend more time breaking up fights and defending ourselves from attacks. Fights and attacks lead to injuries, often serious.

In addition, correctional officers are tested for HIV after every exposure to blood in a facility. The tests take a long time. If you are exposed to blood, your next month is taken up with worry about whether you have contracted a potentially fatal disease. If affects your family. It affects everything you do.

We have also seen a dramatic change in the type of inmates we deal with since the Harris government was elected.

Cuts to mental health services and other social services mean more and more inmates have severe psychiatric problems or developmental disabilities. These inmates attract and require more attention than regular inmates.

Despite this reality, the Harris government has laid off staff, including 21 at Toronto East last year. Vacancies are not being filled. Instead, correctional officers are being forced to work mandatory overtime, often for several days in a row. In these tense conditions, a few days of this can lead to extreme mental and physical exhaustion. This is bad when you work at a stressful job that requires you to be constantly awake and alert.

Many contract staff are being called in to plug the holes. While some of these have been exploited by the government for years, others are very inexperienced.

This is very bad when you consider that the skills and intuition that make a good correctional officer can only be acquired by living in a jail environment and working with more experienced officers. Unfortunately, understaffing is now so bad that you often have entire shifts made up of inexperienced staff. It is a disaster waiting to happen.

This is the reality of the Ontario jail system.

Unfortunately, this government’s approach to corrections is not rooted in reality. It is rooted in ideology. Like Margaret Thatcher before them, this government believes that privatization and union-busting are not just means to an end. They believe that it is a good thing when private corporations can reap huge profits by exploiting non-union workers. We disagree.

Privatization will not create new beds in the system. What it will do is replicate the experience of private prisons in the United States and around the world. Private jails elsewhere have a record of stabbings, murder, corruption, and escapes. In fact, escape was the first thing that happened when the government opened a private "boot camp" for young offenders near Orillia. But rather than learn from this mistake, the government intends to repeat it.

Of the 300 staff required to run the Penetanguishene superjail, only 49 experienced OPSEU members have agreed to give it a try. What this means is that 85 per cent of the staff at the facility, if it ever opens and if it ever runs at full capacity, will be inexperienced. The result can only be stabbings, murder, corruption, and escapes.

As we speak, Penetanguishene is being set up as Ontario’s next Walkerton.

Obviously, we continue to oppose the idea that anyone should make a private profit from taxpayer dollars to run correctional services. This "solution" is no solution at all. It is a public health and safety hazard.

On the issue of correctional services, this government has shown itself to be both arrogant and incompetent. They have declared war on the very people who risk their own health and safety to uphold justice and to protect public health and safety.

As correctional officers, we used to feel relatively safe at work. We don’t feel that way any more. If the government continues on its current course, our communities will soon be feeling the way we feel.

As an occupational group, experienced correctional officers are trained not to allow themselves to be easily provoked. However, when provocation gets out of control, we are trained to take control. That is exactly the situation this government is driving us towards.

We invite the Minister to come out and meet with correctional officers and get inside our reality.