......but no matter what happens the people of Toronto will get screwed.
City willing to talk past deadlineWhile the union representing Toronto's outside workers insists that its strike deadline at midnight tonight is firm, a city spokesman continued to say more time is needed to bargain new contracts...
Strike likely as trash talk continues
By IAN ROBERTSON, SUN MEDIAMidnight madness is about to hit Toronto.
A spokesman for 22,000 inside and outside union workers vowed today they will strike at midnight as he predicted little chance of a contract settlment with city negotiators.
Garbage will start piling up, ferries to the Toronto Islands will be berthed, events on public property will be shelved, city daycare centres will be closed and meetings of council, various committees and task forces will stop meeting.
Emergency services such as police, firefighters, emergency ambulance dispatching and water treatment are not affected, city officials say.
Both sides in the dragged-out labour negotiations between the city and Locals 70 and 416 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) say the strike is not necessary.
In a 10:30 a.m. media briefing today, Mark Ferguson, president of Toronto Civic Employees Union Local 416 CUPE, said the clock is ticking towards a walkout.
"Hopefully there will be significant progress, but at this point, I'm not very hopeful," he said, as negotiators for both sides prepared to meet again.
"Otherwise we'll be on strike," Ferguson told reporters. "The deadline is firm.
"We're wasted valuable time waiting on the city," he said.
"They are pushing us to return to the bitter climate of 2002," Ferguson said.
The last strike by city workers lasted several weeks, ending after the provincial government passed legislation halting the work stoppage.
"Only the City of Toronto appears not to know what a deadline means," Ferguson said, adding city negotiators retired at midnight Friday and Saturday despite the union wanting to continue talks.
He said the CUPE locals, whose three-year contracts expired Dec. 31, have negotiated for six months, but face an uphill battle even with provincial mediators involved, due to 118 pages of concessions the city presented.
"We're making some progress but we're still far apart," Ferguson said, citing a key blockade as demands for senior employees to be replaced by junior ones, with veterans ineligible to apply for new jobs.
City officials plan to brief reporters at 2 p.m., but on Saturday, senior city spokesman Kevin Sack blamed the unions for forcing a strike.
“We expect to reach an agreement ... that’s our main focus,” he said at Metro Hall, adding a walkout is not in the city’s hands and it is not considering a worker lockout.
Nor is the city considering going to mediation to settle, he said.
“The city believes a strike is unnecessary,” Sack said. “The union does not have to strike.”
Money, sick leave, seniority and sick days are among the major issues, he said.
1 comment:
oh come now. This is the sort of thing that gives you reason to get out of bed in the morning.
It must be truly exciting for you.
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