USA
Report: Expansion of religious exemptions undermining law


The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington holds a livestream service with an empty audience in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some states sought exemptions for churches to rules governing public gatherings during the health crisis. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 26 (UPI) -- A new report contends the right to religious exemptions from the law -- such as those that have allowed medical professionals to refuse to provide contraceptive healthcare and a calligraphy company to decline to sell wedding invitations to same-sex couples -- has expanded vastly in the past decade and is threatening the liberties of others.

The faith-based exemptions involve more than reproductive health and LGBTQ issues, according to the report by Columbia Law School's Law, Rights, and Religion Project in New York City. The report says some states have passed or proposed bills that include a broader right to religious exemptions than provided under the U.S. Constitution.

"By citing real cases, we demonstrate that nearly any law or policy, including those protecting crucial interests like workers' rights, public health, environmental welfare, emergency response and religious pluralism, may be limited and/or significantly undermined by religious exemptions," the policy think tank says in the report, released earlier this month.

The report says the most expansive state bills are modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which bars the government from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion except in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and only if an action is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.

South Dakota and Montana passed RFRAs this year, and Arkansas will vote on a referendum in 2022 that would put RFRA-style language into the state constitution, the report says. Efforts to pass RFRAs are expected in additional states during the next few years.

Narrower bills that provide religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health laws also are expected.

"Those who have long been sounding the alarm about the risks of overly broad exemptions often trot out a so-called 'parade of horribles.' An expansive right to exemptions, they claim, could permit religious adherents to ignore countless civil and even criminal laws," the report says.

Cat food, pasta strainer

Requested exemptions listed in the report -- some of which were allowed and others that were rejected by courts -- include paying less than the minimum wage; excluding employees from being protected by antidiscrimination laws because they are deemed "ministers"; denying jobs, housing and services to certain classes of people, including religious minorities and LGBTQ people; allowing parents to withhold necessary medical care from their children due to religious beliefs; and giving faith-based colleges exemptions from a requirement to recognize unions.

So far, no state has granted spouses a religious right to force their partner into a binding "biblical" or covenant marriage or claim a faith-based right to engage in serious crimes, the report says. It gives as an example a defendant who said he was an adherent to "Creationist Naturism" and unsuccessfully argued his post of a nude child on Pinterest was religious in nature.

The report says some exemption claims are confounding, citing a Florida man who said he had a religious obligation to eat cat food in the workplace and a Massachusetts woman who wanted to express her religious identity by wearing a pasta colander on her head in her driver's license photo.

(A federal judge ruled the man's personal religious creed concerning Kozy Kitten Cat Food was a mere personal preference that was not protected by the Constitution. After some legal wrangling between the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and the American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the woman, a member of the secular Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and a self-described Pastafarian, was allowed to wear the strainer in her photo.)

"While not necessarily harmful, such claims underscore the challenges of a regime in which religious exemptions are too often seen as a license to get out from every conceivable law or policy," the report says.

Protecting religious minorities

The report says some exemptions are warranted.

"Religious exemptions have also been used, for example, to ensure that people in prison have access to kosher and halal food; that schoolchildren and members of the military are able to wear religious head coverings and hairstyles; and that members of small religious groups, including indigenous religions, are not criminally prosecuted for the ritual use of substances like hoasca and peyote," the report says.

Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, which advocates for church-state separation, notes that when Congress passed the RFRA in 1993, the act was meant to protect religious minorities.

"American Atheists opposed that law because we predicted it would be used to grant unfair preferences based on religion -- and we were right," Fish said in a statement.

Religious extremists have used exemptions to undermine efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic, he says.

"In Arkansas, Oklahoma and Arizona, they worked to pass bills that would grant churches exemptions from bans on large gatherings, turning churches into super-spreader sites and putting all residents at risk," Fish says. "And in two Supreme Court cases, a court stacked with religious ideologues agreed, exempting churches from common-sense restrictions on the size of in-person meetings."

To stop bills before they make it to the courts, American Atheists has launched state advocacy teams in Oklahoma, Virginia and Florida and plans to start more in 2022, the statement says.

Former Kansas state Rep. Brett Parker is leading the teams, which will work to defend civil rights and the separation of religion and government, according to the statement. Teams also are being set up in Colorado and California, he said.
ADVERTISEMENT





Public health orders, especially those related to COVID-19, are a common target of religious exemption requests, Parker told UPI.

"People claiming religious exemptions to something as simple as wearing a mask," he said. "It's becoming like the get-out-of-jail-free card. If you can claim a religious exemption, then it's almost like the inference is that no restriction or law should be applied."

Parker said he will be tracking legislation with the help of the teams and partner organizations. The work will ramp up in January, when state legislatures go into session, he said.

PRISON NATION USA

Workers at federal prisons are committing some of the crimes

By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK

November 14, 2021

The Federal Correctional Institution is shown in Dublin, Calif., July 20, 2006. Nearly 100 federal Bureau of Prisons employees have been arrested, convicted or sentenced in criminal cases since the start of 2019, accused of crimes from smuggling drugs and weapons to stealing prison property, sexually assaulting inmates and murder. Those arrested include Ray Garcia, the warden at the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 100 federal prison workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden indicted for sexual abuse, an associate warden charged with murder, guards taking cash to smuggle drugs and weapons, and supervisors stealing property such as tires and tractors.

An Associated Press investigation has found that the federal Bureau of Prisons, with an annual budget of nearly $8 billion, is a hotbed of abuse, graft and corruption, and has turned a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct. In some cases, the agency has failed to suspend officers who themselves had been arrested for crimes.

Two-thirds of the criminal cases against Justice Department personnel in recent years have involved federal prison workers, who account for less than one-third of the department’s workforce. Of the 41 arrests this year, 28 were of BOP employees or contractors. The FBI had just five. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives each had two.

The numbers highlight how criminal behavior by employees festers inside a federal prison system meant to punish and rehabilitate people who have committed bad acts. The revelations come as advocates are pushing the Biden administration to get serious about fixing the bureau.

In one case unearthed by the AP, the agency allowed an official at a federal prison in Mississippi, whose job it was to investigate misconduct of other staff members, to remain in his position after he was arrested on charges of stalking and harassing fellow employees. That official was also allowed to continue investigating a staff member who had accused him of a crime.

In a statement to the AP, the Justice Department said it “will not tolerate staff misconduct, particularly criminal misconduct.” The department said it is “committed to holding accountable any employee who abuses a position of trust, which we have demonstrated through federal criminal prosecutions and other means.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has said his deputy, Lisa Monaco, meets regularly with Bureau of Prisons officials to address issues plaguing the agency.

Federal prison workers in nearly every job function have been charged with crimes. Those employees include a teacher who pleaded guilty in January to fudging an inmate’s high school equivalency and a chaplain who admitted taking at least $12,000 in bribes to smuggle Suboxone, which is used to treat opioid addiction, as well as marijuana, tobacco and cellphones, and leaving the items in a prison chapel cabinet for inmates to retrieve.

At the highest ranks, the warden of a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California, was arrested in September and indicted this month on charges he molested an inmate multiple times, scheduled times where he demanded she undress in front of him and amassed a slew of nude photos of her on his government-issued phone.

Warden Ray Garcia, who was placed on administrative leave after the FBI raided his office in July, allegedly told the woman there was no point in reporting the sexual assault because he was “close friends” with the person who would investigate the allegation and that the inmate wouldn’t be able to “ruin him.” Garcia has pleaded not guilty.

Garcia’s arrest came three months after a recycling technician at FCI Dublin was arrested on charges he coerced two inmates into sexual activity. Several other workers at the facility, where actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin spent time for their involvement in the college admissions bribery scandal, are under investigation.

Monaco said after Garcia’s arrest that she was “taking a very serious look at these issues across the board” and insisted she had confidence in the bureau’s director, Michael Carvajal, months after senior administration officials were weighing whether to oust him.

In August, the associate warden at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City was charged with killing her husband — a fellow federal prison worker — after police said she shot him in the face in their New Jersey home. She has pleaded not guilty.

One-fifth of the BOP cases tracked by the AP involved crimes of a sexual nature, second only to cases involving smuggled contraband. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. In the most egregious cases, inmates say they were coerced through fear, intimidation and threats of violence.

A correctional officer and drug treatment specialist at a Lexington, Kentucky, prison medical center were charged in July with threatening to kill inmates or their families if they didn’t go along with sexual abuse. A Victorville, California, inmate said she “she felt frozen and powerless with fear” when a guard threatened to send her to the “hole” unless she performed a sex act on him. He pleaded guilty in 2019.

Theft, fraud and lying on paperwork after inmate deaths have also been issues.

Earlier this month, three employees and eight former inmates at the notorious New York City federal jail where financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself were indicted in what prosecutors said was an extensive bribery and contraband smuggling scheme. The Justice Department closed the jail in October, citing deplorable conditions for inmates. Last year, a gun got into the building.

One of the charged employees, a unit secretary, was also accused of misrepresenting gang member Anthony “Harv” Ellison as a “model inmate” to get him a lesser sentence.

The Bureau of Prisons, which houses more than 150,000 federal inmates and employs about 37,500 people, has lurched from crisis to crisis in the past few years, from the rampant spread of coronavirus inside prisons and a failed response to the pandemic to dozens of escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.

In interviews with the AP, more than a dozen bureau staff members have also raised concerns that the agency’s disciplinary system has led to an outsize focus on alleged misconduct by rank-and-file employees and they say allegations of misconduct made against senior executives and wardens are more easily brushed aside.

“The main concern with the Bureau of Prisons is that wardens at each institution, they decide if there’s going to be any disciplinary investigation or not,” said Susan Canales, vice president of the union at FCI Dublin. “Basically, you’re putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

At the federal prison in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the official tasked with investigating staff misconduct has been the subject of numerous complaints and multiple arrests. The bureau has not removed him from the position or suspend him — a deviation from standard Justice Department practice.

In one instance, a prison worker reported that the official assaulted him inside a housing unit, according to a police report obtained by the AP. Internal documents detail allegations that the official grabbed the officer’s arm and trapped him inside an inmate’s cell, blocking his path.

The same official was arrested in another instance when a different employee contacted the local sheriff’s office, accusing him of stalking and harassing her. The AP is not identifying the official by name because some of the criminal charges were later dropped.

In both instances, the victims said they reported the incidents to the prison complex warden, Shannon Withers, and to the Justice Department’s inspector general. But they say the Bureau of Prisons failed to take any action, allowing the official to remain in his position despite pending criminal charges and allegations of serious misconduct.

A bureau spokesperson, Kristie Breshears, declined to discuss the case or address why the official was never suspended.

Breshears said the agency is “committed to ensuring the safety and security of all inmates in our population, our staff, and the public” and that allegations of misconduct are “thoroughly investigated for potential administrative discipline or criminal prosecution.”

The bureau said it requires background checks and carefully screens and evaluates prospective employees to ensure they meet its core values. The agency said it requires its employees to “conduct themselves in a manner that fosters respect for the BOP, Department of Justice, and the U.S. Government.”

___

Sisak reported from New York.

___

On Twitter, follow Michael Balsamo at twitter.com/mikebalsamo1 and Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips

White supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Fla.

By JASON DEAREN

November 19, 2021

 A pickup truck with a Confederate flag-themed decal is parked outside the Reception and Medical Center, the state's prison hospital where new inmates are processed, in Lake Butler, Fla., Friday, April 16, 2021. According to public documents and interviews with a dozen inmates and current and former employees in the nation’s tenth largest prison system, Florida prison guards openly tout associations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and Black colleagues, a persistent practice that goes unpunished and is allowed to fester in prisons throughout the U.S. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)


In June, three Florida prison guards who boasted of being white supremacists beat, pepper sprayed and used a stun gun on an inmate who screamed “I can’t breathe!” at a prison near the Alabama border, according to a fellow inmate who reported it to the state.

The next day, the officers at Jackson Correctional Institution did it again to another inmate, the report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of Inspector General stated.

“If you notice these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,” the inmate Jamaal Reynolds wrote. “The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.”
Both incidents occurred in view of surveillance cameras, he said. Reynolds’ neatly printed letter included the exact times and locations and named the officers and inmates. It’s the type of specific information that would have made it easier for officials to determine if the reports were legitimate. But the inspector general’s office did not investigate, corrections spokeswoman Molly Best said. Best did not provide further explanation, and the department hasn’t responded to The Associated Press’ August public records requests for the videos.

Some Florida prison guards openly tout associations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and Black colleagues, a persistent practice that often goes unpunished, according to allegations in public documents and interviews with a dozen inmates and current and former employees in the nation’s third-largest prison system. Corrections officials regularly receive reports about guards’ membership in the Ku Klux Klan and criminal gangs, according to former prison inspectors, and current and former officers.



Still, few such cases are thoroughly investigated by state prison inspectors; many are downplayed by officers charged with policing their own or discarded as too complicated to pursue.

“I’ve visited more than 50 (prison) facilities and have seen that this is a pervasive problem that is not going away,” said Democratic Florida state Rep. Dianne Hart. “It’s partly due to our political climate. But, those who work in our prisons don’t seem to fear people knowing that they’re white supremacists.”

The people AP talked to, who live and work inside Florida’s prison system, describe it as chronically understaffed and nearly out of control. In 2017, three current and former Florida guards who were Ku Klux Klan members were convicted after the FBI caught them planning a Black former inmate’s murder.

This summer, one guard allowed 20-30 members of a white supremacist inmate group to meet openly inside a Florida prison. A Black officer happened upon the meeting, they told The AP, and later confronted the colleague who allowed it. The officer said their incident report about the meeting went nowhere, and the guard who allowed it was not punished.

The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to discuss official prison business. They told The AP that, after the report went nowhere, they did not feel safe at work and are seeking to leave.

___

Officers who want to blow the whistle on colleagues are often ostracized and labeled a “snitch,” according to current and former officers.

Mark Caruso, a former sergeant with Florida corrections who was twice fired and reinstated after blowing the whistle on fellow officers, described the department as a “good old boy” network.

He said that senior officers-in-charge have the power to censor any allegations of corrupt behavior that occurs on their watch. This keeps reports inside prison walls.

Mark Caruso, a former sergeant with Florida corrections, stands outside the Central Florida Reception Center. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Caruso worked at three prisons in central Florida and reported inmate beatings and officer misconduct multiple times. Being a whistleblower did not work out well for him. He was fired after reporting on a colleague at the first prison where he worked as a sergeant, he said.

He was reinstated after the officers’ union challenged the firing, and he moved to a new prison. There, he again reported an officer’s use of force and was later fired and reinstated after the union challenged it again.

In 2019, he reported for duty at another new post, the Central Florida Reception Center. He was soon greeted with signs on an employee bulletin board where his name had been crossed out and “SNITCH” scrawled instead, according to testimony at a union grievance hearing. Another officer spit on his car windshield, he said.

Despite the intimidation, Caruso continued reporting inmate abuse and other illegal activity by fellow officers.

“I have reported people when physically seeing them abuse inmates,” he testified in another grievance hearing earlier this year. The AP obtained video of the hearing at which multiple officers and leadership testified in detail about the system’s reporting structure and culture.

Corrections officers are required to file “incident reports” if they see a co-worker acting inappropriately. In some Florida prisons, supervisors often tell them not to email the reports, according to officers who testified at Caruso’s hearing. Instead, they’re told to tell their supervisor verbally what happened or write it longhand. A superior officer then types it up, choosing the language and framing the event.

A sergeant testified that the reason he typed up his officers’ incident reports was because most struggle with writing. Also, most do not have computer access at the prison.

Caruso said he refused to report incidents of corruption verbally because it left no record, and he worried that prison leadership would censor his reports. So he emailed them to create an electronic record, a decision that, he says, irked prison leadership.

After seeing his reports go nowhere, he finally went over his superior officers’ heads. Caruso made contact with an investigator in the Office of Inspector General and emailed Florida Corrections Secretary Mark Inch directly. Inch responded to him expressing concern, Caruso said, and referred the matter to the IG’s office. That did not end well, either.

“For at least two years I reported to (the IG’s office) all of the corruption I saw. He didn’t respond or follow up,” Caruso said of the inspector general’s investigator.

Caruso was eventually fired again after officials said he’d failed to report an inmate beating — one Caruso said he did not actually witness. It was a baffling charge given his active campaign of reporting others throughout his corrections career. He claimed, unsuccessfully this time, that the firing was retaliation.

If the inspector general were motivated to aggressively investigate reports of abuse by white supremacists or other gang members working as correctional officers he would face barriers, the former investigators told AP.

That’s because state law limits the use of inmates as confidential informants, they said, and guards are reluctant or afraid to snitch on their colleagues.

For an inmate to act as an informant, the FBI would have to take over the case because Florida law limits the inspector general’s office’s interactions with inmates, the former investigators said. “We don’t have the authority to do anything,” one said.

Officers, meantime, fear retaliation.

“Officers are saying their colleagues are members, but they can have me killed,” one former investigator said.

___

After the three guards in Florida were captured on FBI recordings plotting a Black inmate’s murder upon his release, Florida corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady insisted there was no indication of a wider problem of white supremacists working in the prisons, so the state would not investigate further.

After the statement, an AP reporter in April visited the employee parking lot of one facility in the state’s rural north and photographed cars and trucks adorned with symbols and stickers that are often associated with the white supremacist movement: Confederate flags, Q-Anon and Thin Blue Line images.

Florida has grappled with this issue for decades. In the early 2000s, the corrections department was forced by a St. Petersburg Times expose to investigate a clique of racist guards who all carried rope keychains with a noose. The Times reported that the noose keychains were used to signal a racist officer who was willing to inflict pain, particularly on Black inmates.

A Confederate monument stands outside the Putnam County Courthouse in Palatka, Fla. 

(AP Photo/David Goldman)

The state investigated the keychains and complaints from Black guards of workplace discrimination. Department inspectors interviewed the white guards who were known to carry the noose keychains and eventually cleared them all.

“This is a pattern all over the country,” said Paul Wright, a former inmate who co-founded the prisoner-rights publication Prison Legal News. Wright helped expose Ku Klux Klan members working in a Washington state prison in the 1990s. He and Prison Legal News have since reported cases of Nazis and klan members working as correctional officers in California, New York, Texas, Illinois and many other states.

“There’s an institutional acceptance of this type of racism,” Wright said. “What’s striking about this is that so many of them keep their jobs.”

Most state prisons and police departments throughout the U.S. do very little background checking to see if new hires have extremist views, said Greg Ehrie, former chief of the FBI’s New York domestic terrorism squad, who now works with the Anti-Defamation League.

“There are 513 police agencies in New Jersey, and not one bans being part of outlaw motorcycle gangs. A prison guard who is the patched member of the Pagans, he can be out about it and tell you about it (with no punishment) because it’s not stipulated in the employment contract,” Ehrie said. The ADL lists the Pagans among biker gangs with white supremacist group affiliations.

This dynamic can lead to what the former Florida prison investigator described as “criminals watching over criminals.”

“If you have a heartbeat, a GED and no felony conviction you can get a job. That’s sad,” said Caruso, the former Florida correctional sergeant.

Florida state Rep. Hart and Caruso have called for a thorough investigation of the issue and a federal takeover of the prison system.

The FBI said it would neither confirm nor deny if such an investigation had been launched, but Ehrie said it is likely.

“I would be extremely surprised if this wasn’t an open bureau investigation,” he said of Florida’s prison system. “It’s almost impossible that they’re not investigating.”

___

The entrance to the Reception and Medical Center, Florida's prison hospital where new inmates are processed. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Meanwhile, reports of racist behavior by correctional officers continue, according to inmates and current and former Florida corrections employees.

In late September, at another Panhandle prison, a 25-year-old Black inmate reported being beaten by a white officer who said “You’re lucky I didn’t have my spray on me, cuz I would gas yo Black ass.” The inmate’s lip was split open and his face swollen.

The inmate’s family requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

His mother reported the incident to the Inspector General’s office on Oct. 1 and requested a wellness check on him. The office sent an investigator to the facility to interview her son, according to emails provided by the family.

After the interview, the IG refused to investigate the officer’s conduct. The mother was told it was her son’s word versus the officer’s, and there was nothing they could do. The IG’s office referred the matter instead to the prison warden.

The officer continued working in the inmate’s dorm and threatened him, the inmate said in letters home.

“All them is a click (sic), a gang. Ya feel me, they all work together,” the inmate wrote in October. For weeks, he sent desperate letters saying he was still being terrorized. He urged his mother to continue fighting.

“Don’t let up Mom. This has extremely messed up my mental. Got me shell shock, feel less of a man, violated ya feel me? But I love you.”

She eventually helped him get transferred in early November to a facility with a reputation for being even more lawless and brutal, according to the family and a current officer. He is four years into a 12-year sentence for attempted robbery with a gun or deadly weapon.

“I do look forward to seeing my son one day and I can only pray,” the mother told AP. “I’m overwhelmed, tired and doing my best to hold on for my son’s sake.”

___

Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Email AP’s Global Investigations Team at investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/. See other work at https://www.apnews.com/hub/ap-investigations.

___

Follow Jason Dearen on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen

Workers’ paradise? Portugal’s new teleworking law takes flak
By BARRY HATTON

Andreia Sampaio sits at her computer as she works from home, in Lisbon, Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Portugal’s new law on working from home has grabbed attention around the world for the way it protects staff. Under the new rules, companies can’t attempt to contact their employees outside working hours. They must also help staff pay for their home gas, electric and internet bills. And bosses are forbidden from using digital software to track what their teleworkers are doing. There’s just one problem: the law might not work. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s new law on working from home makes the European Union country sound like a workers’ paradise.

Companies can’t attempt to contact their staff outside working hours. They must help staff pay for their home gas, electric and internet bills. Bosses are forbidden from using digital software to track what their teleworkers are doing.

There’s just one problem: the law might not work. Critics say the new rules are half-baked, short on detail and unfeasible. And they may even backfire by making companies reluctant to allow working from home at all.

“The law is badly written and doesn’t meet anybody’s needs,” says José Pedro Anacoreta, an employment attorney at PLMJ, one of Portugal’s main law firms. “It’s no good for anyone. ... It doesn’t make any sense.”

In many places around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a prior trend toward the digitalization of work and more flexible work arrangements. Amid such a sudden and massive shift in the employment landscape, governments are scrambling to accommodate working from home in their employment laws. Those efforts are largely still in their infancy.

Many Europeans have stopped going into the office regularly since March last year to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

In Europe, unlike in the United States, worker protections are widely regarded as cherished entitlements. Laying off a staff member, for instance, can entail substantial severance pay.

Without a promised European Commission directive on how to legally frame the shift to more extensive working from home, governments’ legislative responses have been patchy and piecemeal.

During the pandemic some countries have recommended teleworking. Others — like Portugal — have demanded it. Most EU countries have specific legislation on teleworking, though with different approaches, and others are considering it through amendments, extensions or conventions.

As home working grew in recent years, workers’ “right to disconnect” — allowing staff to ignore work matters outside formal working hours — was adopted before the pandemic in countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. It is now becoming the standard.

But Portugal is taking that concept a step further, by flipping the onus onto companies. “The employer has a duty to refrain from contacting the employee outside working hours, except in situations of force majeure,” meaning an unanticipated or uncontrollable event, states the new law.

Also, parents or caregivers with children up to eight years old have the right to work from home if they choose, as long as the type of work they do is compatible with teleworking.

Fines for companies breaking the law go up to almost 10,000 euros ($11,200) for each infringement.

The Portuguese rules are meant to address the downside of what has become known as WFH.

The technology that enables working from home has also opened the door to abuses, such as drawn-out workdays as staff remain reachable outside their normal eight-hour shift. The consequences may include attrition between work and private life and a sense of isolation.

But the new law has met with skepticism from those it is intended to protect.

Andreia Sampaio, a 37-year-old who works in communications in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, agrees with the law’s purpose but thinks it is too general and will be “very hard” to enforce.

“We have to have common sense,” she says, adding that she doesn’t mind being contacted out of hours if it’s an urgent matter. “We have to judge each case by its merits.”

And she reckons authorities will mostly only act on employees’ complaints — “but people will fear losing their job if they do.”

Prompted by the pandemic but designed to apply in the future irrespective of COVID-related measures, the law could come into force as soon as Dec. 1.

It is largely the brainchild of the center-left Socialist Party, which has governed Portugal since 2015. Ahead of an election for a new government on Jan. 30, it is keen to burnish its progressive credentials and hoist a banner about workers’ rights.

Nevertheless, practical questions abound: must staff be taken off company email lists when their shift finishes and then put back on when they start work again? What about Europeans who work in financial markets and need to know what’s going on in, say, Hong Kong, and have colleagues working in different time zones?

What if an industrial machine that can’t be stopped requires the attention of an engineer who’s off? Who is it that can’t “contact” the employee — the department supervisor? The company CEO? What constitutes “contact” — a phone call, a text message, an email?

“The devil is always in the details ... but also in the implementation,” says Jon Messenger, a specialist on working conditions at the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva.

The Portuguese Business Confederation, the country’s largest grouping of companies, wasn’t involved in drawing up the new law and thinks it is full of holes.

Teleworking rules need to be flexible, tailored to each sector and negotiated between employers and staff, says Luís Henrique of the confederation’s legal department.

“We’re treating situations that are completely different as if they were all the same. That’s not realistic,” Henrique said. “(The law) can’t be one-size-fits-all.”

Policing and enforcing the new rules may also be challenging in what is one of the EU’s economically poorest countries. In Portugal, which is notorious for red tape and slow justice, as well as poorly resourced public services, how long will a complaint take to filter through the system and achieve a result?

Across Europe over the past decade the number of labor inspections has “collapsed,” according to data analyzed by the Brussels-based European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 45 million members in 39 European countries.

The country with the biggest drop in the number of inspections since 2010? Portugal, with 55% fewer checks up to 2018.

“Ambitious, progressive laws ... run up against the reality that ways of policing them aren’t in place yet,” said Henrique of Portugal’s business confederation.

Scottish Deerhound Claire Wins Best In Show At National Dog Show For Second Year In A Row

Sarah Curran 1 day ago

© Photo: Bill McCay/NBC 

National Dog Show Best In Show Winner, Scottish Deerhound named "Claire"; Angela Lloyd, Handler

Claire the Scottish Deerhound has made history after once again scooping up the top prize at the National Dog Show.

The prized pooch won the Best in Show Award for a second year in a row, making her the first ever repeat winner.

"She's a year older and more sure of herself and mature into her body," said Angela Lloyd, Claire's handler, while commenting on the win during the show's live stream on NBC.

Claire is the latest in a line of winners; the dog’s grandmother won Best of Show at the 2011 Westminster Dog Show, while her mother won second place at the 2015 National Dog Show.

Among her competitors were Sasha the Pyrenean Shepherd, Jade the German Shorthaired Pointer and Winter the Bulldog.

ANOTHER UCP SNAFU
Alberta Health says privacy breach possible on province's vaccine passport website

CBC/Radio-Canada 1 day ago

© Matthew Howard/CBC Alberta Health says some users downloaded the wrong QR code from the province's COVID records website.

The province's vaccine record website experienced a possible privacy breach, Alberta Health said in a statement Thursday.

Alberta Health says it has received reports of at least 12 users who downloaded the wrong information from the province's COVID-19 vaccination record website on Wednesday. The record those users downloaded contained the name, date of birth and vaccine information. The government says no other information was leaked.

As of 7 p.m. Thursday the site was still offline. Alberta Health says an investigation is underway to determine the cause and the number of Albertans affected.

The issue does not appear to be caused by a security breach to the system, the province says, and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has been notified.

Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping said he wants to apologize to Albertans who may have experienced issues accessing the updated vaccine record for travel.

"The government had months to plan and they continue to fail Alberta families," the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Glenora, Sarah Hoffman, said during question period in Edmonton on Thursday, calling on Premier Jason Kenney to apologize for the "chaos" around vaccine passports.

B.C., Ottawa strike new climate and disaster committee, pledge to match flood donations

Simon Little 

© Provided by Global News Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier John Horgan talk to media about the recent flooding in the province at the legislature during a press conference in Victoria, B.C., on Friday, November 26, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

The British Columbia and federal governments are striking a joint committee of ministers to address disaster response and climate resilience, and have agreed to match Canadians' donations to Red Cross flood relief.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcements Friday evening, after meeting to discuss the deadly landslides and floods that have devastated southwest British Columbia.

The new committee will be co-chaired by federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth.

Read more: Justin Trudeau tours flood-affected areas of Abbotsford, B.C.

"(It will) map out the way forward here in British Columbia and establish a model for how we're going to move forward as a country facing extreme challenges like this," Trudeau said.

"That will focus on establishing the way forward, that will focus on what is needed right now in the days to come ... but also preparing for the rebuilds that will take many, many months and in some cases years," Trudeau said.

Under the government donation matching program, the federal and provincial government will each contribute $1 for every dollar Canadians contribute to the Canadian Red Cross.

"I encourage British Columbians to give a dollar and there will be three dollars going towards helping people in distressed areas," Horgan said.

The fallout of the Nov. 14 atmospheric river is shaping up to be the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, and while Horgan said it was "premature" to talk about dollar figures, he acknowledged "the dollars, the costs will start to mount."

Read more: Environment Canada issues first ‘red level alert’ ahead of back-to-back storms in B.C.

Trudeau pledged that the federal government would be there for B.C. with support in both the days and potentially years ahead.

Asked if that amounted to a blank cheque for disaster recovery, the prime minister said the federal government would commit to being a "full partner" in recovery.

"I have committed from the beginning that we will be here for whatever is needed," he said.

"We need to rebuild, we need to rebuild more resilient infrastructure that's going to be able to handle 100 year storms every few years ... it's going to be expensive, but it would be far more expensive to do less than not to do enough."

Video: B.C. Floods: PM visits flood-stricken Fraser Valley

Trudeau said the federal government has already deployed more than 500 troops to the province to help with the fallout of flooding, some of whom he met with on Friday, and who would be on the ground to help prepare for a series of storms expected to begin arriving Saturday.

The threat of future climate disasters featured prominently in both leaders' remarks.

Read more: B.C. to proactively close Highway 3 and Highway 99 on Saturday as storm arrives

Horgan took pains to stress the scale -- and unprecedented nature -- of the damage in B.C., which for the first time in the province's history cut all major road links to the Metro Vancouver area and pummeled parts of the interior that were hit by prior disasters this year.

"We're facing the brunt of climate change not in the future but now. Our farms have been flooded, our farms have been washed away, and our communities are underwater and more rain is coming," he said.

Video: Weather and travel warnings issued ahead of two more storms

"This followed droughts and wildfires and heat domes this past summer, and I think it's important for Canadians to understand that Merritt was facing drought conditions in May, wildfire conditions in June and July and now flood conditions in the fall."

Trudeau pointed to damaging weather currently also hitting Canada's east coast, and said such extreme weather events were expected to become more common in the years to come.

Read more: ‘The time to prepare is now’: B.C. warns residents ahead of 2 more atmospheric rivers

Earlier Friday, Trudeau toured the flood zone in Abbotsford's Sumas Prairie, where crews have been working around the clock to bolster dikes as the province faces a series of new storms expected to deliver significant amounts of rain.

The prime minister met with Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun along with members of rescue operations on Friday afternoon at Abbotsford City Hall, where Trudeau was briefed on the city's efforts against flooding.

Trudeau, along with federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair and B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, also met with Canadian Armed Forces members in Clayburn Village who were helping with sandbagging efforts.

Topics: British Columbia and Yukon, Emergencies and Disasters in Canada
Vancouver, B.C. | November 17, 2021

Thousands of people displaced from multiple flooding events across coastal and interior regions 
 

The Canadian Red Cross has launched the British Columbia Floods and Extreme Weather Appeal to support those impacted by the recent severe rainfall across the British Columbia southern coast and interior regions, which resulted in multiple flooding events, landslides, power outages, and other incidents.
 
The Red Cross is working to get help to people in and around affected areas as quickly as possible and to provide humanitarian assistance for new needs as they arise. Money raised will enable the Red Cross to carry out relief, recovery, resiliency, and risk reduction activities in and beyond the region at the individual and community levels.
 
Canadians wishing to help are encouraged to make a financial donation to the British Columbia Floods and Extreme Weather Appeal online at www.redcross.ca, or by calling 1-800-418-1111.
 
QUOTE
“The devastating flooding in the coastal and interior regions of B.C. has resulted in thousands of British Columbians being displaced. The Red Cross is committed to helping during this urgent time of need.”

- Pat Quealey, Vice President, British Columbia and Yukon, Canadian Red Cross

 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
@RedCrossCanada | facebook.com/CanadianRedCross | redcross.ca/blog  
Red Cross donor inquiries: WeCare@redcross.ca or 1-800-418-1111
 
About the Canadian Red Cross
Here in Canada and overseas, the Red Cross stands ready to help people before, during and after a disaster. As a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – which is made up of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and 192 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies – the Canadian Red Cross is dedicated to helping people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need and support them in strengthening their resilience.

Integrity of Canada’s immigration system at stake, warn lawyers

The integrity of Canada’s immigration system is at stake if Ottawa continues to allow immigration consultants to operate independently and regulate themselves, warns a new group of lawyers.

Instead, the group — Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA) — is calling for a system where consultants will work under the supervision of lawyers, who will ultimately be responsible for representing immigrants and refugees in terms of their applications and when assisting them at tribunals and courts.

“Self-regulation by immigration consultants has not worked and will fail to protect the vulnerable public,” said CILA steering committee member Barbara Jo Caruso, in the wake of this week’s official opening of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.

The new College is a key part of the government’s $50 million effort to fight fraud in Canada’s immigration system. It has new powers and tools to investigate professional misconduct and to discipline consultants.

Aspiring immigration consultants will also now need to complete a new competency-based graduate diploma program after getting a bachelor’s degree to enter the profession.

The new College’s website already lists 33 disciplinary cases among its members.

“We have an obligation to protect those who wish to come to our country — and we’re fulfilling it,” Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), said in a statement.

“The new College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants will ensure that aspiring Canadians get the professional and honest advice they deserve, and strengthen our immigration system so it can continue building the Canada of the future.”

In an email statement, John Murray, president and CEO of the College, said this marked “the beginning of a new era in the regulation of the immigration consulting profession.”

Caruso, however, says the College will be “simply a third incarnation of two previous federal attempts (Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants and the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council), which have failed.”

“This is nothing more than a name change, as all consultants under the previous regime will now be grand-parented into this new College and all the problems associated with the thousands of immigration consultants engaged in the actual practice of law today will continue,” she said.

“There is no new code of conduct yet and we don’t even know who will be sitting on the board of the new self-regulating body…Fraud and incompetence by immigration consultants is sadly a regular feature of our news cycle, and we believe this will continue.”

Caruso said Law Societies effectively regulate lawyers and placing immigration consultants under their purview will ensure the integrity of the system, properly protect the public and ensure true access to qualified professionals.

In a statement, CILA also explained that the competent practice of immigration law requires a full three-year law school education, keeping abreast of legislative, policy and operational changes and knowledge of other areas of law such as criminal, family and corporate law.

“It is also critically important to stay abreast of jurisprudence from the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Federal Courts of Canada and Supreme Court of Canada. This is the only way to properly protect the public and ensure true access to qualified professionals, thereby facilitating access to justice,” the statement read.

But that’s not a necessarily popular view among immigration consultants.

“It is insulting and unfair for us to be forced to work under the supervision of lawyers,” said a Surrey-based veteran immigration consultant of 16 years.

Asking to remain anonymous because she already assists legal firms on immigration files, the consultant said the self-regulatory system works well to police oversight to her industry.

“I agree that the new College is a just a name change, but we don’t need lawyers looking over our shoulders all the time as we too have the qualifications to help new immigrants and in many cases do the work for much lesser fees,” she said.

“Like the legal profession, our industry also has some bad apples,” said the consultant, a graduate of the University of B.C.’s one-year long Immigration Practitioner Certificate Program.

The Immigration Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association, in a submission to IRCC, pointed to a Regulatory Impact Analysis statement (RIAS) by the government which recognized that the unethical conduct and incompetent service of some consultants and their ineffective self-regulation have seriously harmed immigration applicants and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system.

“Immigration consultants should be supervised by lawyers or Quebec notaries in all activities relating to immigration applications and related proceedings,” contends the Canadian Bar Association.

Quick facts about the newly minted College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.

The College regulates immigration and citizenship consultants under the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act. It has new powers and tools to investigate professional misconduct and to discipline consultants. The College can also protect the public from unlicensed consultants by:

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

Liberals introduce bill to provide sick pay, ban intimidation of patients and health-care workers

Peter Zimonjic 

© Scott Neufeld/CBC Anti-vaccine protesters picket outside the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton in September.

The Liberal government has introduced legislation to provide workers in federally regulated sectors with 10 days of sick pay — while also making it an offence to intimidate or prevent patients from seeking care, or to interfere with health professionals trying to deliver it.

Bill C-3, which amends the Criminal Code and the Canada Labour Code, was unveiled today by Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan and Justice Minister David Lametti.

O'Regan said the pandemic showed how a lack of sick days left many workers at risk. He said that now is the "time to close the gap that the pandemic exposed in our social safety net."

"It is important for our well being, important for health and safety and important for our economic recovery," O'Regan said. "It is crucial to finishing our fight against COVID-19."

According to government officials speaking on background, about 950,000 people work in the federally regulated private sector. About 583,000 of those workers have less than ten days of paid sick leave and would stand to benefit from the legislation.

O'Regan said that while the federally regulated workforce makes up only about five per cent of workers in Canada, the law could set a standard for provinces to follow.

"We know that the only way we are going to get through this pandemic is [that] when people are sick ... they stay at home and [don't have to be] afraid about losing compensation," Unifor's national president Jerry Dias said Friday.
Two new offences under Criminal Code

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who had been calling on the federal government to make this change throughout the pandemic, welcomed the announcement.

"Today's announcement is very long overdue. Justin Trudeau owes frontline workers an explanation about why he couldn't help them when they needed this over a year ago," Singh said in a media statement.

Lametti said the pandemic also revealed the abuse and intimidation inflicted on health-care professionals and patients at vaccination centres, abortion clinics and hospitals.

Protests against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19-related public health measures held outside hospitals in September were condemned by politicians and health-care organizations as unacceptable and unfair to staff and patients.

The changes to the Criminal Code create two new offences meant to protect patients and health-care workers from abuse

.

© Francis Ferland/CBC A anti-vaccine mandate protester approaches a counter-protester in a dinosaur costume across the street from the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus earlier this year.

The first offence makes it illegal to intimidate health-care workers and patients to prevent them from accessing health-care services, or to prevent health-care workers from administering care. The second change to the Criminal Code makes it an offence to bar anyone from accessing health services.

Those convicted of either offence could face up to 10 years in prison.

Lametti said the government is also drafting new sentencing provisions that will require courts to consider serious penalties for anyone targeting a health-care provider at work.

Lametti said he's disappointed that such a law is necessary.

"Even this week, COVID deniers were trying to stop children from receiving vaccinations," he said. "Every day, health-care workers are coming forward and speaking out. They are exhausted, they are discouraged and they are fearful, and the sad reality is that these sorts of threats predate the pandemic."
Lawyer says new laws not needed

Linda Silas is president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, which represents some 200,000 nurses across the country. She welcomed the announcement, calling it a first step in recognizing the threats facing health-care workers.

Silas said that before the pandemic, 90 per cent of nurses reported being exposed to physical violence on the job. During the pandemic, 60 per cent of those nurses reported that the level of violence had increased.

Lametti said he hopes Bill C-3 moves swiftly through Parliament. Silas said she wants to see all federal parties jump behind the initiative.

"In the previous Parliament both the NDP and the Conservatives proposed private members bills to do something similar here," Silas said. "So I would be stunned and very disappointed if there's not unanimous consensus to protect health-care workers."

In an interview airing Saturday, criminal defence lawyer Ian Runkle told Chris Hall, host of CBC Radio's The House, that it's already a criminal offence to block access to a hospital. He said that if those cases are not being prosecuted, it's because of a lack of will, not a lack of legal authority.

"Police have more than enough tools in their toolbox here in terms of offences like mischief, which makes it an offence to obstruct, interrupt or interfere with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property," Rundle said. "That covers blocking off infrastructure."

Germany's new government plans to give millions of people a 25% pay rise by hiking the minimum wage
sjones@insider.com (Stephen Jones) 

 Olaf Scholz, chancellor candidate for the SPD, is pictured during a statement the day after the federal election and the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the state of Berlin on September 27, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.

 Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images

Germany plans to increase its minimum wage by the equivalent of nearly $3, or a 25% rise.

It's part of a deal agreed by a three-party coalition to form a new government.

 
Economists pay close attention to wage increases, which can be one sign of rising inflation.

As many as 10 million workers could receive a pay rise in Germany under plans unveiled by the country's incoming government.

On Wednesday, a three-party coalition agreed a deal to form a new government to replace longstanding chancellor Angela Merkel. As part of the agreement, they want to increase the minimum wage from €9.60 ($10.70) an hour to €12 ($13.46) an hour, per CNN. A rise of 25%.

In the text of the deal, Olaf Scholz, leader of the Social Democratic Party, said that the increase would lead to salary increases for 10 million people, but didn't specify when the changes would be implemented.

There are around 1.4 million people earning the minimum wage in Germany. A further seven million are counted as low earners, according to national statistics.

Scholz's 10 million figure could reflect the fact that some sectors link the lower range of wage settlements to the minimum wage, said Carsten Brzeski, the global head of macro for ING.

The move is an increase on a raise of €10.45 ($11.72), which is scheduled for July 2022.

Following weeks of uncertainty since the September general election, Scholz has agreed to form a coalition government with the Greens and the Free Democratic party. Alongside the minimum wage increase, they also proposed legalizing cannabis and to stop burning coal by 2030.

Economists pay close attention to wage increases, which can be one sign of rising inflation.

Pay for American workers increased at its highest rate since 2004 during the third quarter of the year — lower wage earners, in particular, have received above-average gains.

Prices have also risen, cancelling out the benefits for many.

President Biden agreed to increase minimum pay for federal workers $15 an hour. It will be implemented from January 2022.