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News
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Opposition questions status of HRLE contracting out Wants to know if contract
will be extended
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Roland Butler, MHA for Port de Grave and Opposition
Critic for Human Resources Labour and Employment, wants the Minister to give
an update on the status of departmental contracting out of telephone
inquiries service to Telelink. "When I first raised this matter in the House of Assembly the Minister characterized it as a three month contract to gather data on the number of calls being received," said Butler. "Later, when I received a copy of the request for proposals issued by the government for this contract, I discovered that there was an option to renew for up to two years. We are getting close to the end of this three month time period and the Minister should explain what their findings and what will be the next step for government." For close to a year the Liberal MHA has been saying that the real problem is that there are not enough workers in some HRLE offices to deal with the number of inquiries. Butler objects to the use of contracting out as a way of dealing with this problem. "The level of training may not be there to deal with people in distress and confidentiality issues have to be taken into account. This is not an area that should be contracted out on a whim; it is not only the rights of the unionized workers who are being sidestepped here, it is also the rights of the clients. "I am very suspicious of what is happening and I think contracting out may become a more common strategy with this government. If this contract is extended beyond what was supposed to be a three month data gathering exercise, I would be seriously concerned. The Minister may come up with some flimsy rationale, such as the study was interrupted by the Metro-bus strike in St. John’s, as a reason to extend the contract for another three months. "This government’s whole approach of trying to save money by cutting services to some of the poorest people in this province is repulsive. The HRLE office closures and failure to maintain adequate staffing levels have caused serious problems in service delivery to some of the most vulnerable people in our society." The point made by the Liberal MHA was supported by a letter from social workers at the Janeway to officials in HRLE. The letter stated that children were not receiving the medical treatment they needed because backlogs within the Department were causing excessive waiting times in receiving responses to requests from clients. "It is time for the Minister and this government to
realize they have cut too much and to start to address the serious problems
in a responsible way. They need to hire more workers to deal with the
immediate problem and they need to start talking with front line workers to
develop long term solutions to the problems they face." |
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