City Negotiators Need to Ask ‘What Would Arbitration Do?’
Toronto’s municipal workers are on the picket line because they refused to accept major concessions from the City of Toronto. That is a completely documented, uncontroversial fact. The City would not strike a deal that did not include some pretty fundamental changes to the employment conditions of workers, and workers didn’t go for it.
There are two possible outcomes for a strike – an agreement between the Unions and the City, ratified by a vote of workers, or ‘back to work legislation’ from Queen’s Park. The Unions have been clear they will never accept the City’s current demands, their workers are behind them overwhelmingly. Don’t count on a negotiated settlement. Last time there was a strike of municipal workers it took sixteen days and a papal visit to pressure Queen’s Park into acting to send workers back. Back to work legislation results in ‘binding arbitration’ where an Arbitrator from the Ministry of Labour strikes the collective agreement and it is essentially imposed on both sides.
It is well documented that Arbitrators like workers, and are generally sympathetic to their positions. In this case, I would be prepared to bet almost anything that arbitration will not result in the City getting the a fundamental shift in how workers collect sick leave or their ability to cash it out.
This strike will be essentially about nothing, because it will very likely end with a position extremely close to the Unions, after the Province eventually steps in to bring workers back. That will demonstrate that the City was wrong to box workers into a legal strike position and should have either negotiated a deal or removed the controversial aspects of their concessions from this round.
Until then, parents with small children are out of luck for daycare, summer camp, swimming lessons and other important aspects of childhood. Residents are without garbage pick up, community centres, clean streets and essentially a functioning municipal government.
Torontonians should be frustrated, but they need to direct their frustration at their municipal leaders. Over a hundred concessions is never a reasonable expectation, and when the arbitrator is named once back to work legislation is introduced and passed probably weeks from now, they will likely agree.
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 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Personally I’d prefer to just fire all of the garbage workers and break up this union into chunks that make sense. Having library workers, social workers, paramedics and garbage workers (to name only a few professions) all in one union is just encouraging this union to act like one giant asshole. Clearly they need someone to come by with the proverbial 2×4 and beat some sense into them. Hopefully miller becomes that person, however it is more likely to be Toronto citizens in a few weeks.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I live in Windsor and our CUPe has been on strike for 10 weeks… at first it was so gross, but the people are just taking care of it themselves now.. no big deal anymore..
June 28th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I feel badly for the members of
Union 79, who are trying to get by
without any pay during the strike.
This is not fair!
July 6th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
K_M needs to get his facts straight before shooting his mouth off. Library works are not in the Local 79 union.
Everyone is ready to fire all the city workers but I would like to know who is going to take over and do the job. If councillors could have their way, they would be able to fire everyone at their whim. Wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing.
If it wasn’t for unions workers would be exploited. Everyone needs to remember that.
As Ann says. It’s unfortunate and these are real people many of whom take pride in their work. The city is not perfect but I’ve yet to meet someone who is.
People…. have some compassion.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I’ve been fighting something over the last week, but the last time I went to the hospital I almost died from a drug reaction, yet I heard from a friend many people she knows are dizzy and nauseus, like there’s some other virus going around, and honestly it makes sense because it’s all in the air – with the Garbage Strike.
I’am respresenting over 3.5 million people in Toronto affected by the air – people with Respiratory, Blood, and Immune Problems, or Lymphatic Tissue – we ALL have bodies, Miller HAS to wake the fuck up!
My question to Miller and McGuinty if they can get out of their balls and off their ass, is not to tell me many people aren’t getting sick, when they can excuse anything instead of using their human common sense, is why they never did anything to prevent another new virus strain in Toronto ~ if they could be one?
I’am not saying there is one, but if people thought there could be, it would make people really wake up, and say, “oh….well Toronto didn’t learn again, and pretended they were dumb”!
What is their bloody excuse??
How many millions of dollars do they have for themselves??
STAY AWAY FROM TORONTO MILLIONS ARE GETTING SICK FROM THE GARBAGE STRIKE 09
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