Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Strike’
Garbage Clean Up Begins, Service Restoration Underway as City of Toronto Strike Ends
Toronto City Council voted 21 to 17 to ratify the CUPE 416 and CUPE 79 collective agreements that will allow for City Services to be restored. By Tuesday August 4th, the temporary dump sites and street should be cleaned up and many of the City Services including day cares will re-open. City of Toronto summer camps will resume August 10th.
Toronto Island Ferry service has been restored in time for the long weekend.
I wrote Friday morning urging Councillors to act responsibly and not attempt to cause a management lock out that would have deprived Torontonians of services for an undetermined length of time and cause a more expensive arbitrated settlement. Watching 17 Councillors take a politically opportune but disasterous public policy position in trying to defeat the collective agreement was unfortunate.
They weren’t the only ones looking bad however. It was David Miller who turned the sick pay issue into such a big deal. Two months ago, most Torontonians had no idea workers could bank sick days. Miller educated residents, sought their overwhelming public opinion against this system, promised to end it and failed to. He failed because he could not have ended it anyways and it was a bad promise to make. His opponents on Council should be wise enough to understand they too could not hope to end the sick pay bank – and fighting blindly against this would result in an arbitrated deal that would see the status quo in place.
Miller did better at the negotiating table than could have been done at the arbitration table, but the bizarre left/right politics at City Hall has resulted in both sides being dishonest or misleading with the public about their positions.
Miller’s talk of millions of dollars in savings is based on a hypothetical raise of 3% annually, something the City had never intended to go for. It was money never spent, it was money that was never going to be spent making it an argument that isn’t rooted in fact.
The fact that six Councillors didn’t feel the need to attend the meeting is scandalous. This is probably the most important decision this Council had to make so far in 2009 and these individuals, duly elected, did not appear to have their voice or the voices of their constituents heard. There names are : John Filion (Willowdale); Gloria Lindsay Luby (Etobicoke Centre); Giorgio Mammoliti (York West); Cesar Palacio (Davenport); Kyle Rae (Toronto Centre Rosedale)
The following Councillors voted in favour of a management lock out: Paul Ainslie (Scarborough East); Brian Ashton (Scarborough Southwest); Mike Del Grande (Scarborough Agincourt); Mike Feldman (York Centre); Rob Ford (Etobicoke North); Cliff Jenkins (Don Valley West); Norm Kelly (Scarborough Agincourt); Chin Lee (Scarborough Rouge River); Peter Milczyn (Etobicoke Lakeshore); Denzil Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East); Ron Moeser (Scarborough East); Frances Nunziata (York South Weston); Case Ootes (Toronto Danforth); John Parker (Don Valley West); Karen Stintz (Eglinton Lawrence); Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre); Michael Walker (St. Paul’s)
3 Comments »As City Workers Return to Work – Councillors Need to Act Responsibly
I have had a number of conversations with people about how difficult it would be to be a Councillor who opposed the concessions Miller gave in on. While often the best plan in opposition to a government in politics is to vote against it, risking defeating a labour agreement and forcing a management lock out is totally irresponsible and would result in the City being taken to the cleaners at arbitration.
A Councillor voting against the agreement, is in fact voting for a management lock out. It is plain and simple. Voting against the agreement means that you’d like it to fail, if you’re a Councillor and you want it to fail, its because you want a lock out. Let’s hope that the Councillors who disagree, at least are wise enough to slam the Mayor and company during the debate, but not vote against the agreement. Leave the Chamber if you have to, but don’t demonstrate irresponsibility by fanning the flames in favour of a management lock out.
Citizens need their services back, they need garbage pick up, daycares open, pools, rec centres and parks open, clean and safe for children. Voting against what is a done deal won’t make it any better, and risks making it a lot worse.
We’ll find out today what Councillors decide to do, let’s hope its the right thing.
4 Comments »City of Toronto and CUPE 416 Need to Take the ‘water under the bridge approach’ to Retaliation
This is a no-brainer. The City of Toronto needs to forget about trying to fire workers who acted up on the line during the strike. CUPE 416 decided not to vote today to ratify the collective agreement when the City refused to agree not to take measures against workers who misbehaved on the line. Generally the Union and the City agree to overlook the misbehaviour and wrongs each commits during a strike as part of a collective agreement.
There are over 600 workers who crossed the line who need the City to protect them from expulsion proceedings that would see them lose their jobs for crossing the line, but the City seems prepared to risk the jobs of those individuals to go after some militant strikers.
What the City should have done is called the police if there was objectionable behaviour happening on the line that they wanted addressed. Waiting until the strike has ended to decide to go after workers who misbehaved seems to me like a bad idea that both risks serious and irreversible harm to the City’s allies in both CUPE 416 and 79 and the City’s relationship with unions.
I think all Torontonians want this strike to end, we want our workers back at work and our Council to get the job done – the City needs to get out of the way and let it happen.
Let’s go guys, shake hands, agree to move forward together, and repair the relationship through a mutual protection of those each side would otherwise seek to punish.
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