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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/03/04/a-frightened-workforce-union-worries-as-olymel-reopens-after-covid-19-shutdown/

'A frightened workforce': Union worries as Olymel reopens after COVID-19 shutdown

RED DEER — Some employees of a pork processing plant in central Alberta that shut down after a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility are afraid to go back to work, the union president says.

Olymel’s facility in Red Deer was shut down Feb. 15 because of the COVID-19 outbreak that claimed three lives and infected 515 workers.

The company announced late Wednesday it had been given approval to gradually reopen by Alberta Health. Slaughter operations are scheduled to resume Wednesday and cutting room operations on Friday. The plant processes about 10,000 hogs per day.

UFCW 401 president Thomas Hesse said he received no word from the company that the plant was reopening.

“Obviously the bottom line for Olymel is they’re just putting pigs ahead of people,” Hesse in an interview Wednesday.

“What you’ve got is a frightened workforce. There’s this enormous amount of fear and anxiety, and now a layer of grief on top of that, and they expect employees to jump to attention and parade back to work.”

The union represents about 1,800 workers at the plant.

Hesse said the union interviewed between 600 and 700 workers who indicated they were afraid to return to work. He said that wasn’t done by Olymel, Alberta Health Services or Occupational Health and Safety.

Hesse said he expects some workers will take advantage of their right to refuse unsafe work.

“I have no confidence in the safety of the workplace,” he said.

Olymel said the reopening will come with a number of strict measures. Alberta Health experts will be on site when operations resume and will offer rapid testing. The company said 1,370 employees at the plant have been tested since Jan. 1.

The company says it has added more space to the facility to enhance physical distancing.

Additional staff have been assigned to monitor and enforce the updated measures, Olymel said. Employee groups have been recalled to take part in training sessions covering all implemented health measures, adjustments and the action plan developed for reopening.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2021.

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/02/14/parents-launch-petition-for-red-deer-public-school-pride-week/

Parents launch petition for Red Deer public school Pride week

EDMONTON — Nearly one thousand people have signed a petition calling on the Red Deer Public School Division to reverse a decision not to host a district-wide Pride week in favour of a diversity week.

“You send them to school hoping that there’s these adult role models there advocating for them, as trustees should be doing, and I think it’s obvious that that’s not what’s happening considering their decision to vote against Pride week,” Jennifer Prevost, petition author, told CTV News Edmonton in an interview on Sunday.

Although her children aren’t yet part of the central Alberta public school system, Prevost called rallying support the least she could do to make the community more accepting.

She launched the petition on Friday after the public school board voted 2-4 against a proposal to host a division-wide Pride week.

Instead, the board gestured to its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Policy, which outlines ways students can lead an in-school event, and passed a motion to host a weeklong diversity event.

Board chair Nicole Buchanan says the division has been misrepresented.

“During the meeting, all trustees spoke with passion and conviction and their full support of LGBTQ+ students, staff, families and the community,” she wrote in a statement.

“The Red Deer Public School Board is not saying ‘no’ to Pride week. There is a mechanism in place for a Pride week event in Board Policy 19, our Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Policy Section 9.”

The policy dictates a principal must “immediately grant permission” for a student-led group or event and designate a staff member to serve as a liaison and guide in organizing the activity.

But Prevost says the existing guidance places the onus on children.

“Especially when they’re going to school and already being singled out or mistreated. They’re supposed to overcome that on their own, and then go to the principal or whoever it is to ask for a week to celebrate who they are? That’s asking way too much.”

A Red Deer public school father believes a division-wide event would also educate the broader school community.

“I’m from central Alberta and came back to work. This idea of being a redneck should be a proud thing but now it’s being often used in a negative connotation,” family physician Adam Hrdlicka commented.

“This Pride week and this education around it is for kids like me growing up to know: you accept everybody.”

Buchanan added the division deferring planning to students gives them the creativity and freedom to carry out their own vision.

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/01/22/creating-a-champion-red-deer-artist-spends-a-year-carving-marble-masterpiece/

Creating a Champion: Red Deer artist spends a year carving marble masterpiece

RED DEER — A Red Deer man has spent a year carving a hockey-inspired marble sculpture. Bill Harvey developed an interest for sculpting in 1974 when he saw the Pieta by Michelangelo in Rome, Italy.

“It occurred to me that if Michelangelo could do what he did with hammers and chisels, what might I be able to do with modern power tools,” Harvey said.

Over the next 45 years, Harvey worked on multiple wood sculptures and smaller scale marble pieces. In 2019, he took the challenge of creating his own life-size marble sculpture.

“I wanted to do it, so I just decided to do it,” Harvey said.

He found a slab of marble rock in Vancouver Island. Originally, it weighed 44,000 pounds, but it broke into two pieces while it was being loaded onto a truck. Harvey took one of the 22,000-pound pieces back to Red Deer.

“It was trucked here from Vancouver Island. It was unloaded with a huge forklift, and it was moved over here with another huge forklift,” he said.

Harvey started chipping away at the rock in June 2019. He worked on the sculpture in the outdoors for six months before moving it into a warehouse to work on it through the winter. It took him 1,200 man hours, the equivalent of 150 work days, before finishing the sculpture in June 2020.

“The whole idea is that of a parent and child learning how to play hockey,” Harvey said.

The child is modelled after a friend’s child named Brody. The adult in the sculpture shares a resemblance to Harvey.

“It just turned out to look a little bit like me because of the mustache,” he said.

Harvey has named it “Creating a Champion” representing the hard work it takes to learn and master any skill.

“The whole idea, when I came up with this design, was really about how hard it is for people to start a project, like learning how to play hockey or carving a monument,” Harvey said.

“It’s really just about getting down and putting your nose to the grindstone and doing it.”

The sculpture is currently sitting in an industrial yard in Red Deer, but he expects to find it a new home in the upcoming weeks.

“I want it to be located in a place where it’ll be appreciated,” he said.

“It’s a lot of work and I don’t like it being here in the back of an industrial yard.”

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