they can come to osc. they can come to congress. if they experience retaliation, we can open up an investigation, where we can use the expedited review process to try to get relief very quickly for them, and we have gotten relief quickly -- >> you're still talking about relief to protect them. i want to follow -- keep going on the track. what is the procedure for disciplinary proceeding to set the example? i mean, look, that's half of what criminal justice system is all about. it's part of what an employee justice system is about. to set this example. here we're modeling the behavior of this collaborative approach. over here, we don't want this to happen. sending somebody to an office with a hole in the floor. sending somebody else to an office with no windows. these are things not tolerable. and we're going to demonstrate that to all the other employees by saying, oh, that person was let go. they didn't uphold a standard of core operative collaborative spirit that we hold dear in our workplace. >> disciplinary action is really key

in total osc has secured relief for over 45 whistleblowers.these settlements are putting courageous public servants back on the job and serving veterans. these settlements are also sending a message to other va employees that if they come forward and report problems they will be protected from retaliation. in my earlier testimony i also addressed several serious problems with investigations by the va's office of medical inspector, or o.m.i. in response to my concerns and this committee's concerns the va directed a comprehensive review of all aspects of omi's operations, and this review has led to positive change. a recent whistleblower case is demonstrative. the case concerns a whistleblower disclosure from an employee at beckly west virginia. in response to osc's referral the medical inspector determined that the beckly facility was trying to save money by substituting medications with older, cheaper drugs. the substitutions were made over the objections of mental health providers. and the decision was driven solely by cost concerns without a

in total osc has secured relief for over 45 whistleblowers. these settlements are putting courageous public servants back on the job and serving veterans. these settlements are also sending a message to other va employees that if they come forward and report problems, they will be protected from retaliation. in my earlier testimony i also addressed several serious problems with investigations by the va's office of medical inspector, or o.m.i. in response to my concerns and this committee's concerns the va directed a comprehensive review of all aspects of omi's operations, and this review has led to positive change. a recent whistleblower case is demonstrative. the case concerns a whistleblower disclosure from an employee at beckly, west virginia. in response to osc's referral the medical inspector determined that the beckly facility was trying to save money by substituting medications with older, cheaper drugs. the substitutions were made over the objections of mental health providers. and the decision was driven solely by cost concerns withou

although that process is incomplete as is the osce policy. in the little village in southeast donetsk, demining has already begun under osce auspices. but the picture is very mixed. just yesterday, shelling continued in a key village on the way to mariopol and outside donetsk over the weekend. as i said access for osce monitors in separatist controlled areas remains spotty. and just in the last few days we can confirm new transfers of russian tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery, and rocket equipment over the border to the separatists in eastern ukraine. so in the coming days, days not weeks, here's what we need to see. a complete cease-fire in all parts of eastern ukraine, full unfettered access to the whole conflict zone, a pullback of all heavy weapons, and an end to uninspected convoys of cargo over the ukrainian border. if fully implemented, this will bring greater peace and security in eastern ukraine for the first time in almost a year. as the president has said, we will judge russia by its actions, not by its words. and the united

i want to talk about osc 23 oc. i would bet everybody in this room at one time another has gone gone through some form of professional training. whether it's on a friday afternoon or a retreat or something like that. i bet in our professional careers, you can count and tell the ones that were highly effective and those that were forgettable. this is an important issue. i am going to go to this. have any of the three of you dr. head, dr. hooker and dr. tremaine, have any of you received osc whistleblower certification training? >> no, i have not. >> i have not. >> no. >> don't you wish those three would have got it? >> can i speak to that? >> yes, i think what the certification training is, it's not a specific training. there are five steps that agencies have to take to become certified. one of them is -- i mean a lot of it is a training component. but it means putting posters at facilities. providing information to employers about retaliation and their rights. providing information to current employees. >> is there

tremaine, have any of you received osc whistleblower certification training? >> no, i have not. >> i have not. >> no. >> don't you wish those three would have got it? >> can i speak to that? >> sure. >> i think what the 2302 certification training is, it's not a specific training. there are five steps that agencies have to take to become certified. one of them is -- i mean a lot of it is a training component. but it means putting posters at facilities. providing information to employees about retaliation and their rights. providing information to current employees. >> is there any confusion on that? >> i'm sorry. >> is there confusion on that in the v.a., that if someone tells you about a practice, isn't it widely known that you don't move them from their office without due process or anything? and again, yes, facetiously, but i'm fit to be tired here. do you believe this is going to work? >> you know, i think the problem is that it has to filter down to the regions. i think the message is good coming out of headquarterses but the folk who is are actually impl

. >> you started this when you were a young pr executive with osc oscar dela renta. >> the first day we opened was the first day in the restaurant business. in our first month and i'm not exaggerating, we were robbed twice by employees and had to two kitchen managers slice their thumbs off. carried by ambulance by stretcher to the ambulance at 6:30 in the morning. and very terrible food review and customer who was threatening to sue us because of a bug in the salad. >> it was a good start. >> it was a great start. i opened a second location. and two grew four grew into ten, which is in 13 countries. >> if you had to do it again, would you open a restaurant chain? >> that's a tough question. i will say this. this will be the only thing i ever do. only restaurant i ever do but also the only company i ever do. i love what i do and think there's tremendous opportunity ahead of us for the freshii brand. >> matthew corrin, continued success, thanks for joining us. >> you bet. >> when we come back, we're "on the money." why have a factory when all you really need is a printer? that's right,

i want to talk about osc. i bet everyone in this room has gone through some form of professional training, whether it is on a friday afternoon or a retreat, and i bet you can count intel the ones that were highly effective and those that were forgettable. i am going to go to this -- have any of the three of you received osc whistleblower certification training? dr. hooker: no, i have not. ms. flanz: know. -- dr. head: no. dr. hooker: what the training is -- it is not a specific training. there are five steps agencies have to take and one of them -- a lot of it is the training component, putting posters that facility and providing information to new employees about retaliation, providing information to current employees. >> their confusion on that in the v.a.? that if someone tells you about a practice, isn't it widely known that you don't move them from their office without due process? yes, facetiously but do you believe this is going to work? >> the problem is that it has to filter down. the message is good

mission to the osce. going along this point i completely agree. i have a little bit more pessimistic view on this in that russia's goal to have federalized ukraine where they can de facto influence the east to use as a veto to control the region. what do you think about that? >> that may be russia's goal but that doesn't mean they get there. >> when i view these statistics that is actually why i am a little pessimistic. i'm not sure where people want to go. i feel there will be lack of will in the west. where they also say they don't know where they're going to go and russia can use this and leverage this to influence the country. >> i would emphasize that the more ukraine moves westward, the greater the opportunities are for russia to try to influence the eastern part of the country because you will have more alienated people in the eastern part of the country. to the extent that people in the east have assurances that they're not going to be pulled kicking and screaming into europe the less russia will have a source or means of leverage. >> well

they can come to osc. they can come to congress.hey experience retaliation, we can open up an investigation, where we can use the expedited review process to try to get relief very quickly for themselves. >> you're still talking about relief to protect them. i want to follow -- keep going on the track. what is the procedure for disciplinary proceeding to set the example? i mean look, that's halfçó of what criminal justice system is Á cf1 o all about. it's part of what an employee justice system is about. to set this example. here we're modeling the behavior of this collaborative approach. over here, we don't want this to happen. sending somebody to an office with a hole in the floor. sending somebody else to an office with no windows.p0 these are things not tolerable. and we're going to demonstrate that to all the other employees by saying, oh that person was let go. they didn't uphold a standard of core operative collaborative spirit that we hold dear in our workplace. >> disciplinary action is really key. there's no question about

without the eyes and ears of the osce, i would not have been able to give the rundown of where i gave about where things are going well and poorly in ukraine. that said, as you know, they're an unarmed force. they can only operate in a permissive environment. that's been one of the challenges that they've had, whether it was to get in to secure the crash site of malaysian airlines 317 or whether it's been now working in separatist held areas to get the access that they need. that's what we have to continue to work on. we're trying to work now with european partners to make sure that every osc nation carries its weight in terms of paying the budget increases that this requires but also in terms of the specialized skills. we need monitors who know the difference between the military pieces. we're working on all of that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator isakson. >> thank you, chairman corker. we were in a private meeting this morning, so i can't name the individual, but a well respected journalist who asked a question about what's the greatest threat to the united states security.

osce observers say heavy shelling should have been withdrawn under the minsk accord. >>> loins must do more >> being used in eastern ukraine and other mars of the world can naturally be used in countries like the baltics and it has to worry you is so we have to be ready and we have to be united so we know how to react. >> william taylor is a former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. he joins us from washington d.c. sir thank you very much for joining us on al jazeera. first of all do you agree of what we just heard from general petr powell that u.s. should be more active in confronting the situation in ukraine? >> yes, the russians haven't faced real sanctions, other than damaging their economy. they moved into crimea and then eastern ukraine. harsher essential or other military sanctions they will keep moving. >> you mentioned the russian economy has been damaged but actually what we have seen is that the currency has picked up a little bit in recent months. the treaty is not holding the military option does seem unlikely doesn't seem much appetite in the u.s. or europe for that. >> there's

culture and because it seems to me that in the idea it has gone to the osc is a recognition that thissue has blown up to a place where it was not resolved at a lower level. i want to make sure that we have a collaborative workplace throughout the agency. i did note of the charges we received, the top agencies providing case were, it is true that the v.a. is higher than the dod. what is interesting for me and i did i know if they get the desk for the camera, the v.a. and dod are right at the top. then it drops dramatically down for any other agency in the cabinet. and i'm curious about sort of the hierarchical nature and structure of those organizations and whether it is a greater challenge to change the environment. i am a so curious and this is to ms. flanz what steps are being taken to foster a more collaborative workplace? i will combine this with my follow-up question. we hear about steps taken here in the dce for improvement but how -- what are the specific steps that are being taken to improve the a culture and ensure accountability on the frontline? step-by-step with the people

labor legislation code and you see, well, the united states is quite unique among the osce countries and having no legislative parental leave on the books, it obviously as was highlighted in the last state of the union doesn't have mandated sick leave either. and then you think about, well, where is the next step of this type of pressures going to be found? well, i would say that these are probably the -- the next steps for which these types of corporate actions will be taken. and as i said, it basically means that we are in my opinion in a very fortuitous macro economic and broadly political situation right now. so i think what we're seeing is from that perspective certainly very welcome and it has an opportunity to actually be taken quite a lot further into other initiatives and other areas of labor standards, not just wages. i think i'll stop there. thank you. [ applause ] >> well, thank you very much. this is a wonderful conference. thank you, adam, for including the loyal opposition. it is a pleasure to be here. the discussion today is about voluntary wage increases for lower wa

i was osc for the direct action side. my question is twofold. dealing with women in combat and the role they fill as a cst. whether or not there's been dialogue about the creation of a new ios with the role women fill. not just in infantry or women in field artillery, but whether or not there is a possibility that something is created for women that has to deal with the human engagement piece that, to me seems so important for women. as we see, i think, this war changing, we see the lines of combat becoming blurred i see that the engagement, the human engagement and the, i guess it would be, the vagueness of what is combat is going to be hard to define. it seems to me that creating an entirely new mos that would therefore be fielded out to ranger regiment or special forces in which the women specifically dealt not only with human engagement but were trained effectively combat wise so the men they're with could trust them. >> explain for the audience the cst. >> the cultural support teams was an initiative in 2010/2011 to embed women on small spe

until very recently, we have not had the collaboration with osc that we have now that allows us to use evidence they have been able to pull together to give us a jumpstart so we do not have to start fresh with our investigations. we will, whenever the evidence shows that retaliation has been engaged in, we will hold people accountable. congresswoman rice: let me ask you this. why is it a determination that a whistleblower was not giving accurate information was a much easier determination to make that retaliation against a whistleblower? because what i'm hearing from the three whistleblowers here is, you guys have no problem saying this whistleblower is wrong, but you have no ability to hold a wrong -- a wrongdoer accountable. explain that. ms. flanz: with all the respect that's not how the process works. congresswoman rice: no, no, no. i have to stop you because i have limited time. why is it that whistleblowers have made allegations that were not basing -- based in fact, it seems you could do that pretty expeditiously. it seems to be able to and you cannot do as expeditious and inves