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MINUTES OF THE
TNG-CWA Human Rights and Equity Committee
December 8, 2007
Telephone Conference
PRESENT: Michael D’Souza,
Chair; Yoko Kuramoto-Eidsmoe; Carl Younger; Olivia James; Vernon
Clark; Natalie Hill; Sheila Lindsay; Melissa Nelson TNG-CWA Sector
Rep;
ALSO ATTENDING:
Linda Foley
Bernie Lunzer
Scott Stephens
Lucy Witeck
Arnold Amber
ABSENT: Judy Lee; Randye
Gilliam; Fareed Mohammed
MINUTES PREPARED BY MICHAEL
D’SOUZA.
The committee started its
meeting on schedule at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, 10:00 a.m. Pacific.
Conference on Equity
Issues:
The committee discussed the
upcoming CWA Civil Rights and Equity Conference in April being
organized by the CWA and agreed that this would not conflict with
the TNG’s own plan to hold a conference on Equity Issues in
conjunction with the Minority Caucus of the CWA in Vegas in June.
Some of the possible issues
for the Vegas Conference are:
- The state of human rights
in North America
- Diversity and Economics.
Vernon Clark volunteered to research this further.
- Dealing with equity issues
in a shrinking job markets, looking at seniority and carve outs.
- Looking at the Future of
Jobs in the communication industry. Sheila Lindsay will share her
notes from the conference on this issue.
- Computers and the future
of jobs and how this affects equity issues, especially matters of
making the web more accessible. A report by Michael D’Souza on
access issues is appended to these minutes.
- Expecting 50 to 60 people
to attend is reasonable.
Scott Stephens advised that
Malinka Franklin of the TNG office will help with the logistics of
organizing the conference and co-ordination with the CWA.
The committee agreed to
discuss this conference again at its January meeting in
preparation of a more extensive discussion at the sector
conference in Providence, Rhode Island early next year.
Carl Younger Library
project:
Carl reported that it is
unreasonable to reduce the projected budget of $5,500 because of
the high costs of food. He also said the Boston local will pay up
to half the cost, up from the $1,000 originally offered. He also
reported that a municipal official had offered to help line up
speakers on equity issues.
The committee suggested a
fee of $5.00 be set for people attending. This was seen as a way
of attracting people more interested in equity issues. The funds
generated could be used for the operations of the library. And the
fee would also be a better indicator of how many people would
actually attend. Locals that couldn’t attend could also buy
tickets to support the library. It was also suggested that Carl
explore the idea of setting up the library as a non-profit
operation under Section 501(c) of the United States Internal
Revenue Code with its own board.
The committee agreed to
recommend that the TNG support this event to a maximum of $2,500.
New Local Officers
Seminar:
Michael D’Souza informed the
committee that he had agreed to do the seminar on equity issues at
the New Local Officers Seminar in Springfield, Maryland in mid
January.
Adjournment.
The committee adjourned at
1:45 pm Eastern, 10:45 Pacific, and agreed to meet again on
Saturday, January 12, 2008 at the same time.
Addendum to minutes of
Dec 8 meeting.
A report on the
International Open Forum on
e-Learning and Standardization
Supporting Human
Diversity Through Inclusive Design
Faculty of Information
Studies, University of Toronto
Thursday, September 13 and
Friday, September 14, 2007
Prepared and presented by
Michael D’Souza
Director of Human Rights,
CBC Branch of the Canadian Media Guild
The Adaptive Technology
Resource Centre at the U of T hosted delegates from around the
world at the MaRS centre on College Street in Toronto. The open
forum was held in conjunction with the International Plenary
Meeting of the IT Standardization for Learning, Education and
Training,
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36, the international standards committee
responsible for information technology standards in the fields of
learning, education and training. Recommendations made by
delegates at the open forum went directly to the SC36 plenary.
While the forum was focused
on e-learning, the sessions actually addressed a variety of
diversity and access issues. An analogy that came up repeatedly
was the curb cut. You’ve probably all seen them, the gentle slope
in the sidewalk to the road. Initially built to accommodate
wheelchairs they’re used much more by fully ambulatory people
pushing baby carriages, pulling suitcases on wheels or riding
in-line skates. There was much discussion about the necessity of
making the world a much more accessible place, including making
web pages more easily accessible to people with limited or no
sight and the same applying to documents such as forms. While the
initial motivation may be to meet the needs of people with
disabilities, such changes make the documents etc. much more
useable to everyone; a consideration to keep in mind as the
baby-boomer population of Canada and the United States ages. The
modern technological equivalent is the digital curb cut.
Speakers at the forum ranged
from Abdul Waheed Khan of UNESCO to Barbara Hall, the Ontario
Human Rights Commissioner, to representatives from Bell Canada and
IBM. Keeping the talk real were Kathryn Woodstock a professor of
engineering at Ryerson University who is deaf and Leesa Levinson,
an actress and founder of Lights, Camera, Access who uses a
wheelchair because of MS.
The forum prompted questions
the union should consider about accessibility of material
distributed by the CBC and the CMG. At equity meetings of the CMG
some members with problems reading have commented about the
difficulties accessing some CMG and CBC materials. Quoting the
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C): Accessibility means that people with
disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with
the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. It goes on
to say: Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that
affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical,
speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. The
Consortium has a list of tools that can be used to evaluate
websites. But software evaluations are limited; a proper measure
of compliance needs the human touch.
The Guild should do an audit
of its websites for accessibility compliance. A couple of places
where help may be available are the Adaptive Centre for Academic
Technology at the University of Toronto and Karen McCall of Karlen
Communications who does such audits.
The forum brought was a good
place to meet other people grappling with accessibility, some
dealing with Canada’s legislative requirements such as the
Employment Equity Act and others making accessibility work in the
communication industry. Sujith Reddy works with Scotiabank on
Equity Issues and Gareth Ford Williams does the same at the BBC.
Both have agreed to share strategies that have worked in their
organizations.
Cost
Registration for the two day
forum was $250. Added to this is two days of work relief.
Web references:
International Open Forum on
e-Learning and Standardization
http://openforum.elsacc.ca/
WAI Resources on Introducing
Web Accessibility
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php
Complete List of Web
Accessibility Evaluation Tools
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete
Evaluating web pages:
Adaptive Centre for Academic
Technology University of Toronto
www.atrc.utoronto.ca/
Karen McCall
Karlen Communications
karlen.communications@primus.ca
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