The Legislative Assembly wrapped up its fall sitting last week. The UNW watches the proceedings in the Ledge very closely as the conversations and decisions that take place there have a direct affect on our all our members.
During this session, a theme emerged about how our government operates as MLAs gave voice to what the union has been saying for years – the people at the top who make the decisions are not listening to the people who will be most impacted by those decisions.
Or worse: they are listening, but they’re choosing not to take action when they don’t like what they hear.
Our healthcare system has been suffering for years under management that refuses to listen to its workers. This isn’t news; the Union has been shouting this from the rooftops for over a decade. While it’s been heartening to hear MLAs picking up what our members have been laying down, it’s disappointing to hear cabinet keep repeating the same old responses.
Yes, we know that senior management is “listening”. We know that they’ve tied up a lot of our healthcare resources in “working groups” and “joint committees” and “employee engagement”. What we don’t know is what they’re doing with any of the feedback they’ve received from their workers.
In fact, many of the policies and programs NTHSSA has rolled out recently go against what we know our healthcare members have been saying. It seems that the GNWT’s definition of “listening” is just smiling and nodding.
When we talk about poor workplace morale, one of the main things we hear about from our members is the feeling that decision-makers are disconnected from operational realities, and don’t want to listen to anyone outside the senior management bubble.
Workers are tired of lip service. They’re tired of ministers gushing about how important employee feedback is and how many engagements they’re doing, because at the end of the day, none of that feedback seems to be resulting in positive change.
So while Premier Simpson might be really excited about his new “Health Care System Sustainability Unit”, workers (and their union) aren’t holding their breath. We’ve seen time and time again that organizing a huddle of senior managers to evaluate the efficiencies of their peers doesn’t work.
Take, for example, the GNWT’s 2024 budget exercise, where they surveyed employees on how to find efficiencies and cut costs. Somehow, despite what we hear regularly from members about the operational bottlenecks being caused by top heavy management and not enough program staff, the survey resulted in the elimination of frontline positions and the addition of more high-level senior managers.
It often seems like the number one priority of our top bureaucrats is to protect their own and maintain a status quo that isn’t benefiting anyone because real change makes them uncomfortable.
Somehow, a culture has emerged within our public service that sees accountability as an admission of failure, to be avoided at all costs. This attitude that senior management always knows best means that officials – especially at the NTHSSA – are allowing departments to fly off the rails rather admit that they took a wrong turn that needs to be corrected.
Would you have more trust in the driver who stops regularly to check the map and ask for directions if something doesn’t seem right? Or the driver who insists they know where they’re going even when the landmarks make it clear they’re headed down a dead end?
Instead of encouraging meaningful input from its workforce, the GNWT has fostered a culture where workers are discouraged from participating honestly. Just look at how much “anonymous” feedback MLAs and media outlets receive from frustrated workers.
As a union, we regularly hear from public service members who are hesitant to provide honest feedback to their employer because they don’t see the point, or they are afraid of management retaliation. They’re frustrated because they don’t know what to do. They don’t see a path toward affecting the change that needs to happen.
We share these frustrations. Listening to MLAs and cabinet ministers go back and forth during question period, it seems that there are no obvious ways to hold senior bureaucrats accountable for anything.
It appears that the question of who is actually running our government is a sensitive topic for cabinet, as ministers quickly move to shut down any attempts by regular MLAs to find out where the buck actually stops.
It’s important for ministers to trust their deputies to do their jobs, but it’s equally important for ministers to provide the direction. They were elected by the people of the NWT for that very purpose, and it’s disheartening to see bold ideas and promises of change suddenly disappear when an MLA enters cabinet.
The tail has been wagging the dog for far too long. If our elected leaders are serious about fixing a broken system and creating positive change, they need to start holding senior management accountable rather than maintaining a safety net for incompetence and inefficiency.