City Union "Leaders" Testing The Waters For 10% Wage Hike

Scenario: union negotiations go down to the wire and a strike looms. Comrade Miller rides into the fray for discussions with union "leaders" and averts a last minute strike and unions get what they demand and mayor says that unions promised workplace improvements which will offset and increases over COLA.

October 27, 2007 Anger burns at City Hall Councillor tells unions representing non-emergency staff not to push for firefighters' wage hike By IAN ROBERTSON, SUN MEDIA If Toronto's inside and outside workers won pay boosts similar to what firefighters got, taxpayers would be billed another $17 million in 2009. That figure "is speculation" based on a similar 3% annual hike -- which some current contracts provide for members of two Canadian Union of Public Employees locals, a source at City Hall said yesterday. As CUPE gears up to start talks when three major contracts expire at the end of next year, they are fuming over a councillor's warning not to pursue the almost 10% boost that firefighters will get. You can't compare people who save lives to people who pick up garbage ... road workers or tree trimmers," Councillor Rob Ford said yesterday. In an interview, Ford called "an insult" suggestions that non-emergency staff deserve the same 3% to 3.75% annual raises firefighters were awarded up to Dec. 1, 2009, instead of rate hikes comparable to 1.5% to 2% inflation. He disputed union claims that contracting jobs such as trash pickup and snow plowing costs more than using union workers. When police, paramedics and firefighters leave home, "they don't know if they are going to come home," Ford said, referring to union claims that sewage and road workers perform equally dangerous work "a red herring. "It's a different breed of animal," he said. CUPE Local 416 president Brian Cochrane said "it's really shameful that Ford would say something like this, but not surprising. "To suggest those people are not worthy ... is a ludicrous statement," he said, calling Ford's statements ideological "rantings and ravings. "It's a sad commentary on how some councillors view workers," Cochrane added. Some are anti-union and "don't care about spending the money, as long as it's contracted out," he said. "We have members in a water treatment plant who, on any given day, wade through human excrement up to their chests," Cochrane said, adding roadside workers risk being hit by cars and tree-cutters can fall. Yet base rates for workers other than firefighters, police and paramedics, which CUPE won better wage scales for, are lower, he said. $29M EXTRA The controversial firefighters' wage hike is estimated to cost $29 million extra by late 2009, with yearly increases of 3%, 3.25% and 3.5%. A first-class firefighter is paid $33.73 an hour; a first-class police constable $35.27; a paramedic from $30.23 to $33.19; a trash collector $24.14; litter collectors $21.11; and janitors $19.56. Paid $28.67, 300 bylaw enforcement officers are approaching contract talks via Local 79, which at 16,000 members is Canada's largest municipal employees union. Its president, Ann Dembinksi, said a city building inspector died after plunging "into a pit" two years ago on an unsecure construction site, health workers "were at the forefront during SARS," and public health nurses often enter buildings "police won't go into without them."