Land Of Milk & Honey

Matt Gurney: Toronto's unbending unions stand by their privileges

Posted: June 20, 2009, 2:19 PM by NP Editor
Filed under: Matt Gurney

Looking for a land that the recession forgot? Look no more. Toronto's public sector is the place for you.

All over North America, jobs are being slashed as companies fail or teeter on the brink. For those lucky enough to keep their jobs, many are facing pay cuts or mandatory unpaid days off. For the unemployed, finding a new job is near impossible, and most of the available jobs are part-time or contract-only.

And then there are Toronto's unionized workers, who are preparing to go on strike as early as this Monday, if the city continues to push for changes to their sick day allotment. Under the current system, employees have a whopping eighteen sick days per year. Days that aren't used up can be used to retire early or can be cashed in at the end of their careers. Toronto wants to rationalize this system, so that a certain number of days are set aside each year for actual illnesses. This has already been done in most of Toronto's neighbouring major municipalities, such as York Region and union-dominated Hamilton. Toronto's unionized workers, however, are having none of that, and both the indoor and outdoor workers can walk off the job at midnight Sunday.

It's hard to fathom the gall of the union leadership. With Canadians everywhere at risk of losing their far-less lucrative jobs, which usually come with less pay and fewer benefits, Toronto's unions are demonstrating just how out of touch with the mainstream they have been allowed to become. Nothing seems capable of penetrating their all-consuming sense of entitlement. Not falling home values, not battered equities, not even the painful concessions forced out of the once-almighty CAW. Times have changed, but the union members are doing their best to pretend otherwise, even as major municipal governments in the United States take an axe to their own unionized payrolls.

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