and Toronto residents and taxpayers lost.
City of Toronto inside and outside workers are returning to their jobs today after a 5-week strike. Remarkably, the city and unions say they can clear 5 weeks of accumulated trash and clean city streets (i.e. 5 weeks of work for these “workers”), in 3 days, 2/3 of which is a summer holiday weekend! Having been told by city officials, as recently as last Monday, that services could nor resume until next Tuesday - if the new labour contracts were approved by city council today - city residents are now being told everything is back to normal this morning and the backlog of work will take only a couple of days to clear. Instead of resuming work on Tuesday, after the SImcoe Day holiday, it will be business as normal. Does anyone at the city think before talking?
Being unable to publish exaro for more of the civic strike, I was spared the temptation to weight-in on the dispute. A retrospective comment is irresistible.
Toronto is in a serious budget crisis. For years the city has deferred maintenance of critical infrastructure (water, servers, roads, public buildings) so it could minimise tax increases and treat its employees to above average wages and benefits and keep labour peace with police, fire fighters and all the other municipal staff while, concurrently, launching new, soft services that coddle the masses but were never envisioned as a municipal government responsibility. For years, the city has depended upon the provincial and federal governments to bail it out when budget deficits became unmanageable. In 2008/09, with the recession looming, the city resorted to major tax increases to barely balance the budget, while continuing to defer expenditures to 2010. The 2009 budget headache will become a migraine in 2010 and there will be no assistance from Ontario or Canada. The choice will be to increase taxes and fees 10-20% or shut down many of services residents have some to expect of their city. Either choice, in an election year, will make things very interesting.
Back to the strike. City residents’ expectations of their union friendly mayor were low going into contract negotiations. The city had already given extraordinary increases to police and firefighters during secret negations that were presented to council only for rubber-stamp approval. Similar up to 3% annual increases for the office and outside workers, with no offsetting savings in job security or benefits, were expected. Then the mayor, David Miller, was walking tough. There would have to be savings, an untenable sick-leave plan would have to go, wage increases would have to be modest; but, in turn, job security would be preserved. Not a bad offer in a recession when thousands of city residents and taxpayers have lost their jobs. Yet we suspected the mayor’s tongue was deeply embedded in his cheek as he winked at his union power base.
At the outset, I believe both the city and the union (two CUPE locals, in fact) expected a short strike with provincially legislated arbitration and back to work legislation passed before the Ontario Legislature went on summer holiday. Since arbitrators almost never take away anything from a previously negotiated contract, the union expected to keep all its benefits intact while winning wage increases in-line with those given police and firefighters. The mayor expected to be absolved of responsibility while he attributed full responsibility to the province for the back-to-work order/arbitration order. He could then go to the province for financial help for the problem it created! Bad decision on both parts. The Ontario government was content to let the city and their unions fester in their own mess, and garbage.
Nearly five weeks into the strike, the city was in pretty good shape. A bit messy in places, but no public health issues, thanks to a lot of residents working to take their garbage to collection centres and tidying their neighbourhoods Volunteerism was working to keep Toronto looking good and city managers were finding ways to keep issuing permits and many other essential city services. The city could have survived a few more weeks without problem.
The union members, however, having expected a short strike, were fast running out of money to pay bills and mortgages and a large number were crossing picket lines to return to work to save their homes and families. Thus the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Fearing the collapse of union solidarity, CUPE declared its intent to withdraw from negotiations, which would have likely forced the provincial government to intervene [the breakdown in bargaining clause that was used to end the CUPE strike at York University earlier this year]. Arbitration, in all probability, would have been good for the union. CUPE didn't get it.
The key stone kops, led by Mayor Miller meanwhile had promised Torontonians and city council an end to the gold-plated sick leave option. Arbitration had become a public relations disaster scenario for the mayor. The public had learned over 5 weeks that going to arbitration meant the union had won and it wanted the union to be broken on the sick-leave issue. So both sides went into a marathon bargaining session, last weekend, in which the union won everything it needed to satisfy its members and the city and mayor tossed all the commitments to council and residents in the trash.
The gang that couldn’t shoot straight almost messed-up by announcing it had reached an agreement before it had initialled the resumption-of-work protocol. Where was CUPE in this? Such protocols are an essential part of any contract negation and should never have been overlooked. From all appearances, some vindictive souls at the city decided, having lost everything else, to stick it to the union by moving the resumption of work to next week, thus depriving union members of another week’s pay, not to mention holiday pay for the long weekend. And the city was going to use private contractors for the cleanup and avoid a huge over-time charge (which would have helped strikers with their overdue bills). The deal almost fell apart and probably would have were it not for the inside office workers - mostly women - who were crossing the picket lines in increasing numbers to pay the mortgage and buy food for their children.
Meanwhile, the chief kop was lying to city council and the public saying the sick-leave plan was gone/vanished/history. Still he refused to tell even city council the details of the agreement until after union ratification, knowing he would then have the power of blackmail to get the deal approved.
The union clearly made the best recovery, as details of the contract leaked out. It got an immediate return to work (today), overtime for the cleanup and pay for the holiday Monday, upcoming. Moreover, the union got to retain all the sick-leave and other benefits of the previous contract plus a rich wage increases, save for hypothetical future hires who will be virtually non-existent as the city deals with huge deficits for the next few years.
Today, a majority of city councillors, seeming to thrive on performing anilingous on David Miller, will grin and approve the contract. Miller no longer cares how big next year’s deficit and tax increase will be, since he is almost assuredly in his final term with a union/labour movement sinecure in his future. The mayor’s contempt for city council and his opponents knows no limits. The debate will be nasty and vulgar, foretold by the mayor’s description of the opposition yesterday as “disgraceful and unwarranted”. Just when paying your bills and telling the truth became disgraceful, he didn't say. When did it become honourable for a mayor to withhold information from and lie to elected councillors?
The play has turned out to be a farce. CUPE clearly wasn't able to manage the strike and succeeded only because the city was even more incompetent and the mayor its end-of-day ally in arms. City council and its officials look impotent because they were unable to control a mayor who has no time for the city’s best interests. There’s no strength visible as Toronto moves towards bankruptcy-driven restructuring and no obvious candidate for replacement CEO/mayor next year in sight.
It all makes me realise one of the finest things about living in Markham is not living, or paying taxes, in Toronto. Except of course, as a taxpayer in Markham, Ontario and Canada, I subsidise the monkeys running the zoo just 300 metres south of me every hour of every day.
