City
Toronto Municipal Workers Strike Over, Pending Ratification Vote
CUPE local 79 has reached a tentative deal with the city, almost surely bringing the 36 day Toronto municipal workers strike to an end. With news coming this morning that the city and CUPE local 416 had reached a tentative deal, the focus of negotiations shifted to securing a deal with local 79. With ratification votes planned for Wednesday, picket lines could be removed as early as Thursday, marking the return of the approximately 30000 workers who walked off the job June 22nd.
Although both sides refuse to disclose the details of the deal prior to ratification, Mayor Miller and the president of local 79, Ann Dembinski, are claiming to have achieved their goals. Dembinski expressed confidence that the deal will be ratified by union members, while Miller said that the deal satisfies the city's mandate and "meets the principles set at the outset of negotiations."
With such rhetoric from both sides, it remains unclear why a deal was not reached earlier. In announcing that local 416 had reached a tentative agreement earlier, union President Mark Ferguson reported that the city removed its concessions from the table at around 7:30 this morning, but in the absence of details about the deal, it's impossible to verify this claim.
Toronto city manager, Joe Pennachetti, is currently working on a plan to have services back up and running as quickly as possible. Although he too was unable to give specifics, he plans to hold a press conference after the ratification votes. As information comes available about the resumption of services, it will be posted to the Access Toronto website.
Photo by uwajedi.
Discussion
35 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
Needless strike mishandled by union sympathizing mayor who rather turn our parks into chemical soaked landfills than offend the union by contracting out cleanup. Asshat.
Miller should have dealt with this in January when the contracts expired to save the summer.
Amen Parker!
Clearly Parker knows nothing about labour relations. Miller could have gone to the Ontario Labour Relations Board and obtained an order for CUPE to show up at the bargaining table but if it's the union's intent to drag things out to the summer then that's what'll happen -- unless you think Miller should have locked out the workers as the earliest possible date, taking snow plows off our streets and creating a genuine threat to public safety.
If I were living under a rock for the last month, the headline would make it seem to me that Toronto municipal workers are going on strike due to a pending ratification vote.
back to work, criminals!
That's what I read too :-p
me too
I've added a comma for clarity. But why in the world would workers go on strike because of a ratification vote!?! :)
Miller's gotta go.
He's lost me as well as thousands who voted for him twice.
Either he resigns now, with whatever dignity he's got left, or he'll get his ass booted out during next year's election.
Because we're blogto readers that just sit here waiting for things to pick on.
The TTC went of strike after that dumbfuck Kinnear said he accepted the offer, and we're dealing with CUPE, so crazier things can happen!
Miller, you thin loser. this should never have happened. next time replace them with mid range intelligence chimps. they'd do a better job.
The city removed its concessions? Seriously? WTF Miller
Totally. But while Parker and David up there may be ignorant, they're in good company. This whole strike has just proved how little most Torontonians know about their city and its politics. It's easy to piss all over Miller, and he's definitely earned some of it, but the amount of vitriol directed at the man lately has been ridiculous. He gets blamed for everything that goes wrong and then people suggest ludicrous solutions (Was he supposed to fire 30,000 city employees, most with families, in the middle of a recession?)
But then, the strike, along with the Tamil protests, the "war on the car" and whatever else, prove that there are a lot of profoundly ignorant, reactionary halfwits walking around out there who don't care about anything unless it affects them diretly (unions included). And if it does, whoa, watch out. And for all the crazy hyperbole people spew about toxic parks and closed day camps and whatever else, this is primarily about convenience. Your trash is piling and getting smelly. It's unpleasant. Nothing more.
So grow up and get some perspective.
Miller's been claiming for weeks that there's been no concessions. The union has claimed the opposite up until now. It's clearly a matter of speaking to your members/constituents. Ferguson (the 416 leader who said there were no concessions today) also admitted that there was a lot of compromise, but he needs to make the offer look good to his members to do his job. Likewise, Miller says the offer satisfies everything the city was looking for. I suspect they met somewhere in the middle of each side's demands, which is the point of negotiating. But any discussion of the merits of the deal have no basis until we actually get to see it when it's released to the public Friday. I heard today that the negotiators had no ability to improve the wage offer without the mandate from council, and the members lost more than they could gain from that.. but I don't think wages were the real issue anyways.
bah, they could have come to an agreement much earlier. The city is (over)run by lunatics.
Amen to that, Matt
Matt +1
People are all for the right to strike/protest unless it affects them. And the people who had smelly garbage piling up at their house have nothing to complain about compared to the needy who had no access to social services - and yet they complain the loudest. The number of times I saw people calling it 'illegal' that they were being delayed dropping off their garbage was ridiculous. People's ignorance of labour laws is astounding.
My other pet peeve is how often I heard the term "Garbage Strike" even in the media, when only 5% of the workers on strike were garbage men.
Anyways, I just hope it's over.
Our arrogant, socialist Mayor must resign...now!!
The issue most people take with this strike is mainly the attitudes of the CUPE leaders. That, and the general feeling of being 'robbed' as CUPE workers get paid more for the same amount of service. Ultimately, I think that many felt slighted that as the city had a slight edge over CUPE in terms of support from the public, it simply gave up when CUPE upped the pressure. That's the flak Miller's getting.
I would support the garbage collection contracted out to those who can provide the best in quality for the lowest cost, CUPE can be free to bid as well. If Windsor and Toronto are the only two cities in Ontario that still use unionized workers, why continue?
Let's all hope miller will resign today. I'm sure an interim mayor will do until the next election.
None of this is on miller's head.
it's on CUPEs.
Anyways...as like any other media driven political fad in this city, this whole strike fiasco will be long forgotten in about a week. Us Torontonians have the attention span of a gnat. Miller, CCCPUE, Dumcuntski, whomever...you'll all be but a distant memory in short notice. Wait till the first shooting at Caribana this weekend...then we will see what the new topic du jour is.
Next!
Depends on your view, Torontonians are great at not dwelling, and great at looking forward to the future. So many cities are held back by negativity, one idea, stuck in a time warp.
So the Union got what it wants, Miller keeps their support, and the rest of us get buttfucked. Sounds about right.
Yes were right back where we were, back to normal, isn't that what we all wanted?
well said!
With the small matter of everyone paying more for it.
>I think that many felt slighted that as the city had a slight edge over CUPE in terms of support from the public
But what good is public support? It won't hurry the negotiation process. The city or the union could give a rats a$$ about public support during bargaining. It's like saying, well I had the support of my family in negotiating my new job. It's irrelavent to the outcome
> I would support the garbage collection contracted out to those who can provide the best in quality for the lowest cost, CUPE can be free to bid as well.
CUPE is not a corporation. Why would they bid as a corporation on business?
> If Windsor and Toronto are the only two cities in Ontario that still use unionized workers, why continue?
Just because services are private does not mean they are non-union. There are plenty of private companies unionized. Transit in BC is a good example of that. I'm sure there are several sanitation companies in Ontario which are also unionized.
P.S. 9/10 times privatizing services, costs the public WAY more money. Just cause companies are only paying their sanitation workers 8 bucks an hour, doesn't mean that they are charging the city less then what our taxes currently pay for.
Hey Short Term that's the way the news and the world works there is always a new issues at hand. Its life, learn to prioritize. What are people supposed to do dwell over the garbage and just continue to talk about it for the rest of the year? Just because you don't hear people talking about an issue anymore doesn't mean its gone, People don't forget, they will speak will with their votes. Did you hear about the shooting at the Brunswick house this weekend?
Matt, thanks. I get exhausted listening to all these people tear on Miller without looking at the whole pic.
Wow, you apparently haven't been to Caribana in 3 years.
Absolutely not.
Re o O, Matt,
Yes Matt there is alot of exaggeration taking place but it is justified venting of people who are pissed off with Miller for his lack of leadership and the bull he has been delivering over the years about what a great job he has been doing managing the City. The exaggeration of the venting is only the corrolary of the Mayor's misleading of the public. People who once gave him the benefit of the doubt now realize they were duped and they are justifiably mad.
I'm watching the news conference on CP24 right now.
Is Miller melting down before our very own eyes?
He looks nervous, fidgety, beat up and haggard.