Torontonians Should Brace for Municipal Workers Strike
Let the PR battle begin! On Friday, I received a press release from the City in my inbox with the title “City of Toronto ready to work through union strike deadline to reach a negotiated settlement”. The union set the legal strike deadline with the Province of Ontario mediator sixteen days ago, and made it extremely clear in advance of even giving the legally required seventeen days notice of a legal strike position, that they were heading in that direction. I don’t support a strike, I don’t want to see a strike, but should there be one, I blame the City for causing it.
I don’t believe a strike helps anyone. I think most of all it hurts Torontonaians who pay their taxes and require the services these workers provide. We have nothing to do with the status of workers sick leave at the time of retirement. This issue is the ultimate ‘inside baseball’ and the members of Council who are on the Labour Relations committee (a majority of members took the 2009 increase for Councillors, six of seven are entitled to over 12 months pay at retirement or defeat as severance) need to be aware that the hypocrisy they and their fellow Councillors exhibit and fumbled negotiations hurt all Torontonians.
If the City seriously wants to resolve the issue of sick leave pay outs at the end of one’s career – they need to pull it from the table, make an agreement in the next fourteen hours and strike a working group of union reps and City management to discuss this issue over the next three year agreement. That is the only way they can expect to get any action on this issue. Failing that, there will be a strike, Torontonians will lose services they rely on, over something that has nothing to do with them and negotiations that the City has so badly messed up through pitched fights, bad faith negotiations and posturing.
The Union’s have been clear that 12:01am Monday morning is a firm deadline. The City has known about this date for almost three weeks, and workers have gone almost six months without a contract. After revoking worker’s right to Family Day and telling the Unions they’d have to fight to get it back, coming up with 140 pages of concessions for workers, refusing to talk money or anything else until the unions back down on the sick pay issue – it’s easy to see why the unions don’t plan on showing any more good will.
City Council regularly demonstrates how out of touch it is with the folks who live in Toronto and make it the great place that it is. This is another example as their irresponsibility has now created an unnecessary strike situation that unions are likely to make good on.
Should there be a strike, I urge you to write your Councillor and the Mayor and tell them that you believe the responsible course of action is to pull the issue of sick pay benefits off the table, to work out an agreement and strike a working group of union and city officials to explore the issue of sick pay benefits over the term of the new collective agreement.
Contact information for the Mayor and Council can be found here.
Tags: City of Toronto, City of Toronto Garbage Strike, City of Toronto Sick Benefits, City of Toronto Strike, City of Toronto Strike Update, City Unions, CUPE 416, CUPE 416 Strike, CUPE 79, CUPE 79 Strike, Labour Relations Committee - City of Toronto, Municipal Strike Toronto, Sick Benefits, Sick Pay benefits Toronto, Strike, Toronto Strike
June 21st, 2009 at 11:00 am
It seems that labor unions in both Canada and the US believe that the current economic problems will pass. That we all can return to endless growth based on dwindling resources. Pension funds and retirement benefits are now shell games that supports what has grown in to a ponzi scheme. They rely on future economic growth to cover the future obligations, a growth that I believe is doubtful over the next 15 years or so. I support the labor movement but this is not our grandfather’s economy or future. We need new thinking all around.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
So, they strike in the middle of a bad recession and if they get their way – the taxpayers who are also worried about their jobs or have already lost their jobs will have to pay more taxes – but what the hell.
We’re sandwiched between corporate and union greed.
If they do this, I bet the NDP numbers will plummet
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 am
The other unionized city employees have already negotiated their contracts without concessions. The city is trying to villify the workers.
To top it off, Toronto Emergency Medical Services is included in Local 416 and Local 79 and our numbers will be reduced to 75% of normal staffing levels. This is contrary to the official word the City of Toronto that this will not affect emergency call response time.
http://bit.ly/gtahL