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.
But don’t expect deputy mayor Doug Holyday, the cat who’s heading up contract negotiations for the city, to turn up in an orange jumpsuit to chuck garbage into trucks.
It’s war the Fordists want with the unions. The mayor is depending on it to bolster his waning popularity. The signs have been there for weeks and were confirmed again January 5 when it was revealed after the Employee and Labour Relations Committee’s in-camera meeting that the city has asked the province to appoint a conciliator. Notable here was committee member Chin Lee’s objection, marking his further distancing from the Ford fold. The committee’s decision wasn’t unexpected, but it is tactically questionable if we’re supposed to believe assurances that the city is bargaining in good faith. It’s not, of course.
Nothing vaguely resembling negotiations have occurred to date. From what I can gather, there’ve been virtually no talks. The city’s request for a conciliator is simply intended to speed the process of getting to a legal lockout.
It’s high-stakes poker Ford is playing, and the unions seem to be at an early disadvantage. The mayor’s holding most of the cards, preparing to hunker down for as long as it takes to eliminate bumping rights from the current collective agreement and get the 10 per cent cut in wages and benefits the city’s looking for. Contracts have already gone out to hire replacement workers.
He has no intention of following the pattern of past labour negotiations and honouring the current agreement while talks are ongoing. Instead, speculation is he’ll toss a bomb into the works – say, cut wages unilaterally to antagonize the unions into striking or some other rash action that’ll remind the public of the fallout from the 2009 labour disruption.
Public support is absolutely critical, so it’s doubtful the unions will respond in kind to any Ford provocations, at least at first.
But even council observers who argue it’s not in the interest of the unions to strike say it’s hard to know how workers will react when scabs – er, replacement workers – start crossing picket lines. “That may provoke some craziness,” is how one put it.
The unions are intent on not striking, no matter what Ford throws at them. They seem prepared to take a few body shots for the sake of good PR, including, I’ve been told, accepting a wage freeze in the first year of a three-year deal. The unions know they’ll need the public onside, bringing pressure to bear on council.
Concessions over bumping rights, however, will be harder for labour to accept, since they go to the heart of job protection provisions in the current agreement: the idea that those with seniority have some reasonable expectation of job security.
It’s easy to see why the city wants to eliminate bumping rights. Laying off staff with seniority and replacing them with lower-paid workers would certainly give it the so-called “flexibility” (read arbitrary layoff power) it’s looking for to cut labour costs. That’s how it’s done in the private sector.
But the unions are not the only ones with something to lose. For the mayor, taking on the unions to prove he’s tough on the bottom line carries risks. Not least among these is the prospect of other unions coalescing around the cause of city workers.
How long can they stand by and watch their brothers and sisters in CUPE get the axe? Will the trade unions stand idly by, or the development industry, for that matter, if building permits dry up and mess with construction schedules? Developers have already been calling councillors’ offices on that front.
There’s no guarantee that middle managers will be willing to fill in for regular workers in the event of a lockout. After all, managers are part of the public service that Ford & Co. have attacked as so much garbage.
The spectre of a Wisconsin-like scenario has been raised. Labour lost that battle, but is also set the stage for public awareness about the corporate attack on public services. For the Canadian union movement in general there’s much at stake in this fight. The whole country is watching to see just how far Ford can go.
If he can bring the city’s unions to heel, then presumably there will be little resistance to his privatization agenda, which has already started in waste management but could conceivably affect every facet of the public service. Can the privatization of water services be far behind? Radical conservative agenda? You bet.
Original Article
Source: NOW
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