Toronto: Municipal workers face lock out

[blake 3:17]

This was expected and really effin bad. Everyone I've heard from the relevant CUPE locals -- which represent about 25000 workers -- had said that the negotiations had been completely in bad faith and that extreme right wing municipal government is going to be doing all it can to eliminate the unions and gut services.

City wants deadlock declared in contract talks, strike or lockout looms
January 12, 2012

David Rider

The City of Toronto is asking a provincial mediator to declare a deadlock in its contract talks with unionized staff — a step closer to a winter lockout or strike.

Councillor Doug Holyday confirmed the move in an interview Thursday.

“I guess we weren’t getting any co-operation” in ongoing talks, Holyday said shortly before Mayor Rob Ford held a news conference to discuss the move in his City Hall office.

“I guess it’s just another step in the process. Hopefully it will get the two sides together.”

Contracts for about 32,000 City of Toronto workers in four unions expired New Year’s Day.

A city-requested provincial mediator started meeting with negotiators for the city and CUPE Local 416, representing 6,000 outside workers, on Monday. Earlier talks had broken down in mid-December.

The two sides met again this week and discussed bargaining dates, but the city now says no progress is being made.

If mediator Denise Small agrees and Ontario Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey issues what is called a “no board” report, 17 days after the day on that report the city can legally lock out the workers and the workers can legally strike.

The Ford administration is adamant the union give up safeguards ensuring any permanent employee made redundant by contracting out, or technological innovation, be found another job in the civil service.

CUPE 416 president Mark Ferguson is equally adamant workers won’t give up the hard-won job protection or other concessions being sought by the city, fuelling fears of a winter lockout or strike.

Earlier this month, Holyday told the Star the Ford administration believes that, if a work disruption is inevitable, it should happen soon, in the winter, rather than the summer when rotting garbage will stink up the tourist season.

Talks are ongoing between the city and CUPE Local 79, representing 23,000 inside workers, and are expected to start soon with the 2,300-member Toronto Public Library Workers Union.

[blake 3:17]

Big demo Tuesday! Please come if you're in the area!

Final Budget Showdown: Toronto vs. Ford- January 17th
Posted on January 2, 2012 by admin
http://www.facebook.com/events/294553420588331
Invite EVERYONE you know!

Date: Tuesday, January 17th
Time: 5:30pm
Location: Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen St. West

On January 17th-19th, City Council will vote on the 2012 budget. Ford and his buddies want to cut nearly $90 million in services, even though the city has a surplus of at least $140 million. They plan to slash services, hike fares and user fees, and lockout or layoff workers when there is actually enough money to improve life in this city.

Toronto Stop the Cuts has been organizing in neighbourhoods across the city to build powerful resistance against Ford and his cuts. On January 17th, we are all coming together for a Final Budget Showdown - a rally and actions to oppose the cuts and demand an expansion of city services for all! Join us – together we can Stop the Cuts!

Organized by Toronto Stop the Cuts Network which consists of:
Etobicoke North Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
North York Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Trinity/Spadina Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Parkdale Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Downtown East Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Jane/Finch: [email protected]
St. Clair West Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Riverdale/Leslieville Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Davenport/Perth Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Beaches Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]
Etobicoke South Stop the Cuts Committee: [email protected]

To endorse, email [email protected]

And a pretty good article from the progressive Now magazine:


Rob Ford’s high stakes union gamble
THE MAYOR’S HOLDING THE CARDS, BUT A WISCONSIN-LIKE LABOUR BLOWOUT CARRIES RISKS FOR HIM
BY ENZO DI MATTEO
For a split second at the Thursday, January 5, meeting of council’s Employee and Labour Relations Committee, it seemed councillors couldn’t believe what they were reading on the agendas in front of them.

The committee had gathered to discuss strategy – how best to put the boots to city unions in ongoing contract talks. The contracts of four city unions expired December 31, including CUPE Local 416, which represents 6,000 outside workers, CUPE Local 79, which represents 23,000 inside workers, and the library workers’ union.

But it was the good news on the labour front that was throwing them off, creating a PR problem given all that Ford’s allies have been saying to cast the unions as no-good greedy pigs getting fat at the public trough.

Seems those same unions are saving us money, a cool $800K to be exact, thanks to the fact that workplace grievances are down 13 per cent and workplace injury claims down by a whopping 15 per cent. Holy crap.

Some committee members didn’t know what to make of the situation, predisposed as they are to view labour as the bogeyman responsible for all that ails T.O. But Denzil Minnan-Wong tried, noting that there was actually an increase in reported injuries among 311 staff. It’s called repetitive stress, Denzil.

We’re now realizing savings on the occupational health and safety front thanks to changes brought in by the previous labour-friendly administration, proof of what’s possible when labour and management work together.

That reality doesn’t jibe with Ford & Co.’s demonization of the good men and women who deliver city services. In fact, so eager is the administration to cut employees that city manager Joe Pennachetti is proposing to extend the voluntary separation package offered earlier this year (few accepted it) and to spend millions to kick people out the door on an “as needed” basis.

Shit. Just how bad has the work environment become for city employees? Councillors are even going undercover.

Yes, that was TTC chair Karen Stintz, also a member of the Employee and Labour Relations Committee, disguised as a brunette in a fetching bit of PR reportedly designed to help her appreciate the challenges faced by TTC employees.

Stintz discovered that driving a subway train and cleaning transit stations can be hard, tedious, isolating work that’s not as easy as the right-wingers who fill the blogosphere with anti-union BS would have us believe.


Full article: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=184705

[NewLeft]

Where is the Beaches Stop the Cuts Committee? If it's still on Main St (close to home!) then I'll be there.

[blake 3:17]

From the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty:

DON`T BE A STRIKEBREAKER FOR ROB FORD!
Submitted by ocap on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 04:22.
City Jobs
A MESSAGE FROM THE ONTARIO COALITION AGAINST POVERTY

Rob Ford and his friends on City Council are out to wipe out public services in this City and to attack the workers who deliver those services. Thousands of members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees face the threat of being locked out by the City. (This means the City would refuse to bargain for a fair contract but would instead lock the workers out from their jobs with no pay).

OCAP is an organization that works among poor communities under attack and we know what side we are on in this fight. Ford wants to sell off many services to private corporations and then cut what is left to an absolute minimum. The workers who deliver those services will not have decent wages or working conditions, if he gets his way. The City will become, instead, a low wage, sweat shop employer. This would be a huge defeat that would drive down wages all across the City and beyond and it must not be allowed to happen.



--If the City workers find themselves defending their jobs in the next short while, Ford will not hesitate to run a strikebreaking operation against them. Knowing lots of people are hurting in these tough times, he will try to recruit desperate people to cross picket lines and help him win his war against working people. Don`t fall for this and don`t play the shameful role of being a scab for Ford.

If the City workers are forced into this fight, OCAP will stand in solidarity with them. The way to fight poverty is to defend decent paying jobs and fight to raise the level of those who are presently being denied this basic right. We intend to help the City workers win, to stop all of Ford`s brutal cutbacks and to rally communities under attack to defeat him and all he stands for.
Don’t cross the City workers`picket lines – join them!

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
(416) 925-6939 [email protected]

[blake 3:17]

From the Toronto Star

Toronto labour fight: As lockout date looms, CUPE reports ‘significant progress’
Published On Thu Feb 02 2012Email Print (0)
Rss
Article
Comments (0)
Daniel Dale
Urban Affairs Reporter

Less than 72 hours before a lockout or strike becomes legal, the leader of the union representing Toronto’s outdoor municipal workers is reporting “significant progress toward successfully concluding an agreement.”

Mark Ferguson, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416, made the optimistic assessment in a written statement Thursday afternoon.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, chair of the city’s labour relations committee, could not be immediately reached for comment.

"Negotiations on a collective agreement between our union and the city have reached a sensitive stage,” Ferguson said in the statement, “and we are making significant progress toward successfully concluding an agreement. We prefer for the remainder of the day to refrain from media comment that may compromise that progress.”

Local 416 represents more than 6,000 workers, including garbage collectors, paramedics and parks maintenance staff. A labour stoppage can legally occur as soon as Sunday morning.

Holyday said Tuesday: "They haven't dealt with the substantial matters that we put before them. And if they don't do that, the clock is ticking and I couldn't guess what would happen."

[blake 3:17]

Strike averted: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1126534--city-and-outside-workers-reach-tentative-agreement?bn=1

Analyses to follow,