The city’s tentative concessions to striking civic workers may prompt the city’s non-unionized managers and supervisors to seek financial compensation.
Friday’s vote at city council on the ratification of the contract for CUPE Locals 416 and 79 is dividing council along pro-Miller and anti-Miller lines. It could be close, and a handful of councillors who are politically neutral will be the key. Here are five councillors to watch:
1- Mark Grimes: In 2007, the Etobicoke councillor played a key role behind the scenes helping to forge a compromise over implementation of Mayor David Miller’s land transfer tax.
2- Suzan Hall: This Etobicoke councillor proved she’s not afraid to take on the mayor when she actively worked to delay the implementation of the land transfer tax. Yesterday, she said she hasn’t decided on the union deal and wants to see the details of the deal, but hinted changes could be afoot.
3- Paul Ainslie: A council loner, this Scarborough councillor has often criticized the mayor, but doesn’t align himself with the right-wing Responsible Government Group of councillors. This week, he said the continued use of the sick bank is a “huge financial liability” he can’t support.
4- Ron Moeser: A long-serving Scarborough councillor, he has not yet made up his mind on the union deal. Sometimes votes with Miller, sometimes not.
5- Bill Saundercook: The High Park-Parkdale councillor shares the same ward as Miller but has not thrown his support behind the mayor. Saundercook often takes a conservative stand on issues, but may decide that prolonging the strike is an untenable scenario.
July 30, 2009 - 23:32 ET
The media is all a-tingle over President Obama's meeting with Sergeant James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at the White House...
“Yes to Israel Independence”… “No to American Dictates!”
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009
Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location: Consulate General of the United States of America
Street: 360 University Avenue
City: Toronto, ON
Join the Anti-Obama Rally in Toronto
Bring Canadian and Israeli Flags
The Jewish Defence League of Canada and Bob Kunst from Shalom International will lead a PROTEST against President Obama on Friday July 31 at 12 noon at the Consulate General of the United States of America 360 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario
By Katie Hewitt
Mark Ferguson’s voice was heard above hundreds as CUPE Local 416 workers cheered, muffling his speech at an information and voting session held at the Ontario Ministry of Labour on Thursday, to which media was not invited.
Mr. Ferguson, Local 416 president, was telling union members exactly what they wanted to hear.
“The City wanted to terminate and prosecute those few who got a little excited on the picket lines. We made sure of amnesty for everybody involved. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!” he said, fist in air, to resounding applause.
Mr. Ferguson’s sin city slogan made reference to the amnesty clause, one stipulation in a controversial back-to-work protocol that held up ratification votes for 416 workers and dragged negotiations on until late Wednesday night.
In exchange for City-sanctioned amnesty, the union made what Mr. Ferguson called “the difficult decision” not to punish what the union calls “scabs” -- unionized workers who crossed picket lines during the strike.
Later in an interview, Mr. Ferguson said the City relented on all of the 118 pages of concessions initially given, including changes in grievance and job posting processes, as well as post-retirement benefits.
Mr. Ferguson is at a loss as to why Mayor David Miller dragged negotiations on so long before conceding. “I have no idea what their strategy was,” he said.
Mr. Ferguson said his strike strategy has earned him “more handshakes than I’ve ever had in my life.”
Traffic moving toward the building’s entrance was at a standstill. Cars were everywhere, even strewn on the lawn— minivans and motorcycles, parked in solidarity.
Outside the ministry building, workers waiting in a two-hour line were eager to talk to reporters, after the union lifted a ban on talking to the media.
Ben DeSousa, a garbage disposal worker who sported a CUPE button and t-shirt, is happy with the deal, but takes issue with public perception of union banked sick days.
“People think it’s a perk. It’s not,” he said, as working with hazardous trash can cause sudden illness, requiring sick leave.
“Only God knows what’s in the garbage,” he said.
Asked for his thoughts, Rick Power, a transfer station operator said “I think the strike is over, whohoo!” and gave a little kick in the air.
Mr. Power also had thoughts for Mayor Miller. “He [Mayor Miller] never told the truth in one interview,” and Mr. Power predicts “Miller’s out” in the next election.
Joe Barta, a city paramedic for 19 years, called the deal between Local 416 and the City “the ultimate definition of compromise,” since “no one got what they wanted, but both sides are satisfied that the other got screwed.”
Posted 7/30/2009 6:34:00 PMKimberly Rivera, a U.S. soldier, was sent to Iraq in 2006. Like many other American soldiers deployed since 9/11, she eventually came to have doubts about the mission. In February of 2007, while on a two-week leave home from Iraq, Rivera and her husband packed up their children and drove to Toronto.
There, they found a small but welcoming group of natural allies. Rivera is not the first American soldier to desert the military and seek asylum in Canada. The fate of these errant soldiers has stirred controversy here, with many recalling the tens of thousands of draft dodgers that fled north to escape the Vietnam War. Many of those Americans have lived productive lives in Canada ever since. This, plus the distaste felt by many Canadians for any military mission nastier than peacekeeping, has led some to conclude that Rivera and a handful of others like her should be permitted to remain.
Last June, opposition parties combined to pass a motion urging the Harper government to let American deserters stay in Canada. The motion was reaffirmed after last fall’s election, but Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has been less than impressed, deeming the war resisters “bogus refugee claimants.”
With the Toronto strike grinding towards its final hours, among pundits, guarded skepticism is giving way to outright dismay at just how badly the Toronto taxpayer got swindled. Despite all his bluster about having stuck to his guns to achieve his objectives, Mayor David Miller doesn't look quite like the victorious general he's doing his best to pass himself off as. If anything, he's getting more Custer-like by the hour.
You can't help but feel for him. Throughout the strike, Miller tried his best to pretend he was working for Torontonians and not the unions, but you don't have to be a mind reader to tell that his heart wasn't in it. Despite his economics and law degrees, he's a union man at heart, and he took to the task of negotiating with the unions like the devoutly religiously high schooler assigned to the pro-choice debate team. He went through the motions, but only barely. You could tell which side he was on.
After six weeks of mounting garbage, union-boss bullying and cancelled events, Toronto Mayor David Miller caved in and gave striking city workers just about everything they wanted.
And make no mistake, Commissar Miller folded like a cheap tent. The union wanted a pay raise; they got it. The union wanted to keep a benefit plan which awarded workers 18 sick days a year (they could also accumulate these “sick days” for a payout when they retire) he let them keep it, though it will be gradually phased out.
It seems there is no recession in Toronto Public Workers Land.
A cynical view of Toronto's 36-day garbage strike is that Mayor David Miller's settlement was designed to win him union votes in the 2010 election. Cynical or not, that's the way it looks.
SCAB?When I signed on for my strike duty shifts at Nathan Phillips Square that first morning more than a month ago, CUPE members had the opportunity to write messages on the placards we’d be marching with. The inscription I came up with was “Old story: a family fight, and it’s the kids who suffer.”
Lorne Gunter
'I have no trouble believing he went from zero to obnoxious instantly when approached by Sergeant James Crowley on his doorstep'
Miller dealing with the unions was the equivalent of expecting a fox to responsibly administer a henhouse
CTV reported yesterday that a Liberal party source took the story of Prime Minister Stephen Harper pocketing a communion wafer at a Roman Catholic mass, and passed it to a Liberal-friendly editor, who published the story under the byline of two reporters who had nothing to do with it.
The network's evening webcast reported (at the 10.30 mark):
That story was first published in the St John Telegraph Journal which is owned by the billionaire Irving family. The prime minister hit the roof. Well, today, a grovelling apology from the paper. They said the story was not true. So what happened? Well, I'm told that the Liberals passed the story to young Jamie Irving who was the publisher of the paper. He passed it to the editor who put it in the paper without checking it out, and today the editor has been fired, and Jamie's father has suspended his son for thirty days, and I'm told the prime minister is pretty thrilled with that.
If true, whoever is responsible must be called to account.
When he met his caucus last July at Lévis, Stephen Harper was looking for a pretext to call a fall election. Today, as he meets them at Meech Lake, he should be looking for a pretext to avoid one.
That was then, this is now.
A year ago, Harper had poll numbers in his pocket that told him a Conservative majority was not only achievable, but quite likely, with the road to that majority leading through Quebec. Today, a Conservative majority is out of reach, largely because Quebec has become a roadblock. What's more, the timing of a fall election is otherwise inconvenient and inauspicious for the prime minister.
There are three reasons why Harper should do everything in his power to remain in office until the fall of 2010, which might be the very reasons for the Liberals to hasten the downfall of this minority House.
Liberal Leader toughens line, as opposition MPs are tired of propping up Tories
Sebastian Herrera died at the hands of a cold-blooded killer.
Residents of a North York housing complex say they are living in fear, convinced they are caught up in an escalating gang war, after their neighbourhood was sprayed with bullets and two young men were injured early yesterday.
bullets and two young men were injured early yesterday.You don't need to be a fan of handguns to accept that a ban is useless unless there is some likelihood the prohibition will succeed in reducing the ability of criminals to get their hands on weapons.
The argument against banning handguns is the slim chance of this happening. Unless the crooks who use the guns are willing to abide by the law -- or can be forced to abide by effective policing -- the ban is a waste of resources. The anti-ban argument appears to be supported by this:
Should city councillors approve a deal that allows unionized employees to continue to bank sick days? | |||||
| Yes | |||||
| 769 | ||||
| No | |||||
| 3100 | ||||
| Don't know | |||||
| 119 | ||||
| Who do you feel conceded the most to reach a deal in the civic strike? | |
| The unions | 0% |
| The city | 100% |
| Both equally | 0% |
| Undecided | 0% |
| This is not a scientific poll | |
| | |
The devil is in the details and those details, ironed out late last night, held up settlement of the strike by Toronto's outside workers.
When the city and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 said on Monday they had a deal, two key elements were, in fact, missing.
The two sides still didn't have a signed memorandum of understanding outlining what they had agreed to. And they hadn't finalized a protocol on how to get workers back on the job.
Usually, these details are cleaned up quickly after an agreement in principle is reached.
By comparison, in Windsor last Thursday, the city and 1,800 garbage workers reached a deal to end a 101-day strike. That day, council reviewed the deal and a prioritized cleanup plan. The next day, workers endorsed the deal and the strike was officially over.
Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis said paying for trash to be picked up by private companies during the strike paid off.
"We wanted to be in a position post-strike where we could immediately begin delivering services to the residents," he said last week.
But as talks progressed yesterday in Toronto, it was clear the two sides were far from agreement, especially on the tricky issue of whether private contractors should be allowed to clean up the mess left by the strike.
After talks that reached early into yesterday morning failed to reach an agreement, the two sides caught a few hours sleep and started again.
Adding urgency to the negotiations, at 10 a.m. the city dispatched two top officials to the table: deputy city manager Richard Butts, and Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste.
But as the hours dragged by, it was clear the outstanding issues, especially contracting out, were difficult ones.
Under an agreement worked out after previous disputes, city workers would do the cleanup exclusively for the first seven days, but private contractors could be hired if work remained after that.
Negotiators were trying to hammer out a similar agreement.
"When a guy's been on strike for six weeks, you can't just let someone else come in and do his work," one union official said.
Discipline was another tricky issue. The two sides had a hard time agreeing on whether strikers accused of serious misbehaviour on the picket line could be disciplined when they go back to work.
A few face criminal charges. Mayor David Miller said any criminal charges will proceed but told reporters that on the more minor disciplinary measures "it's time to move forward" rather than dwell on past incidents.
1. WHEN DO WE GET OUR CITY SERVICES BACK?
Unclear. Mayor David Miller called a news conference yesterday to announce details, then said he could not provide any details since the back-to-work protocol was still being negotiated with CUPE.
2. WHAT'S THE HOLDUP WITH THE BACK-TO-WORK PROTOCOL?
Miller would not be specific, but said the issue is related to "how we deal with the cleanups." To be determined: the extent to which outside contractors are involved; provisions on overtime for city workers.
3. AFTER THE PROTOCOL IS SIGNED, WILL THE CLEANUP BEGIN IMMEDIATELY?
No. Local 416 has indefinitely postponed its ratification vote, originally scheduled for yesterday. If Local 416 votes to ratify, city council will hold its own ratification vote tomorrow .
4. WHAT HAPPENS IF THE LOCALS VOTE TO RATIFY BUT COUNCIL VOTES TO REJECT?
City negotiators would have to return to the bargaining table, though undoubtedly in a severely weakened position. "If the unions ratify and city council doesn't, that would be extremely problematic, obviously," Miller said.
5. MILLER SAID THE SICK BANK WOULD BE "ELIMINATED" UNDER THE TENTATIVE DEALS, THEN THAT IT WOULD BE "PHASED OUT." WHICH IS IT?
More like the latter. Under the deals, current workers could opt to receive an immediate cash payout for banked sick days or to continue to accumulate days until they retired. The program would indeed be eliminated for new workers.
6. HOW EXACTLY WOULD THE DEALS AFFECT THE CITY'S $140 MILLION CUPE SICK BANK LIABILITY?
Unclear. The final impact would depend on the number of employees who chose the immediate payout rather than the continued accumulation. Immediate payouts would shrink the liability, but the accumulation would increase it.
7. WHAT HAPPENS IF LOCAL 416 REJECTS ITS DEAL?
The possibility appears unlikely. Wage increases, as Miller said, are in line with other recent public sector agreements, and workers will welcome the preservation of the sick bank for the duration of their careers.
8. NOW THAT LOCAL 79 HAS RATIFIED, WILL ITS MEMBERS RETURN TO WORK EVEN IF LOCAL 416 AND CITY COUNCIL HAVE NOT YET VOTED?
Unclear. Late Tuesday, Local 79 president Ann Dembinski (above) demanded her members be permitted back immediately upon ratification – but Miller said they are welcome back whenever: "Workers are on strike. They're not locked out. They can come back right now." The issue is complicated by the delay in the Local 416 vote. A Dembinski spokesperson did not return phone calls yesterday.
9. HOW QUICKLY MIGHT WE GET OUR CITY SERVICES BACK IF AND WHEN ALL PARTIES RATIFY?
After the 2002 strike ended on a Thursday, island ferry service, full ambulance service, and golf course operations resumed Friday; day camps and daycares reopened Monday; pools were open by Monday and temporary dumpsites cleaned by Sunday night; garbage collection resumed on schedule. The city says it will not be able to resume "full service" for "several days in many operations and program areas."
10. WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY GARBAGE WHILE ALL THIS GETS SETTLED?
You know the drill.
TORONTO - After being tantalizingly close, it now looks like Toronto's six-week civic strike could really be over by Friday with the final local holdout agreeing to hold a ratification vote Thursday.
Three Galloway Boys gunmen got the toughest sentences possible yesterday for attempted murder and for committing crimes as members of a gang.
July 27, 2009
Students at MacGregor Point and Sauble Falls Provincial Parks, members of OPSEU Local 224, flagged down cars July 25 to let people know they aren’t getting the vacation and holiday pay they were promised.
“The most common reaction we got was, ‘the government can do that?” reports Caitlin Underwood, a gate attendant at MacGregor Point who helped organize the information pickets at the parks. “People were surprised that the government doesn’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else. They were supportive of our fight to get back the pay.”
This is Caitlin’s third summer at the park. She will be entering her fourth year in the Nursing program at MacMaster University in the fall.
Like most students, Caitlin counted on receiving the 8.16 per cent pay in lieu of vacation and statutory holidays this summer. She had received it in past summers and signed a contract in April which promised students the pay.
“You take a job expecting the money and then you don’t get it,” says Caitlin. “It’s not right. I could have gone and worked somewhere else and made more.”
“Just because we work for the government doesn’t mean we deserve less than everyone else,” she adds. “The government is showing us that we aren’t important to them.”
About 3,400 high school, college and university students work for the Ontario government in the summer. They work in provincial parks, travel information centres, tourist attractions and for many other programs. Many of the government services that Ontarians enjoy in the summer rely largely on student labour.
More protests are expected to be staged by students in the provincial parks during the civic holiday long weekend.
My appearance on FNC’s Hannity show last night (vid at Hot Air) to talk about Culture of Corruption prompted many bitter e-mails from Obama-bots, but this one takes the cake:
from Del Hughes delhughes@suddenlink.net
to writemalkin@gmail.com
date Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 9:42 PM
subject Book
mailed-by suddenlink.net
How do you, an Oriental, get on national TV and say and write such hard things about the President and several of his staff without being sued for slander? If you wrote about me like you have written about all these other people, I would sue you for slander in heartbeat.
“Orientals” on TV! Appalling!
Guess what? Del Hughes was not alone in his/her dismay over a brown-skinned critic of Obama on the TV.
Look:
from barou yoplo yoplo54@yahoo.com
to writemalkin@gmail.com
date Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 10:27 PM
subject Don’t Forget Where You Coming From
mailed-by yahoo.com
signed-by yahoo.com
Miss,
I follow your steps since the election and apparently you forgot where you coming from.
I will be glad to have a debate with about your book, your vision, and you being an Asian who forgot where she is coming from.
You and your friends are not in a good position to judge anyone, nor having the right to assume someone is corrupted without a concrete proof. So be careful for what you wish for.
And here’s yet another race-based missive that landed in the in-box tonight. This one earns special recognition for creative spelling:
from Chatora8@aol.com
to writemalkin@gmail.com
date Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 9:43 PM
subject (no subject)
mailed-by aol.com
Michelle Malkin you are a stupid asian BITCH.The only reason you are on t.v is because americans feel so so sorry for you.
It is obvious that you have no idea what you are talking about.
So go and sell your body some more.
So that you can send money back home to support your slummish asian family.
Michelle A.K.A undercover HORE.
Hey, so much for post-racial America! Why don’t we all just have a beer and stop racial profiling, hmmm?
Posted 7/28/2009 11:31:00 AM I've known what Melissa Todorovic looks like and I've obviously known her name for months now, thanks to a colleague in the business who can sniff out anything on the Internet. For months she was only "M.T.", the accused and then convicted killer of Stefanie Rengel. Protected by the faulty Youth Criminal Justice Act, it took a brave sentence from Justice Ian Nordheimer to introduce Toronto to a teen who coldly and sexually enticed another young offender to kill an innocent girl.| [ READ MORE ] |
| Posted By: Mike Stafford |
I'm so hopelessly naive when it comes to politics that I actually think Michael Ignatieff made the right decision in avoiding a summer election.
He shouldn't have threatened it in the first place, making himself look bad when he eventually backed away. But backing away was the correct thing to do, given that he had no platform, no distinguishing policies (Employment Insurance, don't make me laugh), no campaign team worth the name, little experience as leader, dubious finances and no sign of public support.
Kory Teneycke, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Director of Communications, has decided to step down.
It’s a job that nobody has held for long and no wonder – Harper can be a tough guy to work for. I should know. At one time, back during his days at the National Citizens Coalition, I was Harper’s communications guy.
But somehow I don’t think I’m at the top of the line to replace Teneycke.
However, that doesn’t mean I can’t offer free advice to his replacement. So that’s what I will do.
Here are my top five tips to the next Conservative Director of Communications.
• Be real. Don’t try to make the Prime Minister into someone he isn’t. He isn’t a cuddly guy who wears vest sweaters and plays the piano. He is a tough-minded, determined, unsentimental individual. Don’t try to disguise these traits. You won’t fool the Canadian voter. Besides lots of people would see those traits as the hallmark of a strong leader. So let Stephen, be Stephen.
Re:Yonge and Bloor public square
would be 'amazing,' July 27
I am struck and dismayed by Christopher Hume's comments on the future of the Yonge-Bloor intersection. He quotes the mayor as saying that Toronto does not have a tradition of public spaces. Here we have Toronto in a nutshell, and why it fails to be a first-rate city.
This is why Toronto does not have the transportation system that it needs, or the waterfront that it deserves. For the past 50 years, city councils have taken the attitude that if it costs money, they do not want to do it.
World-class cities do not just happen. They are planned and built, and then the people come to visit and enjoy them. I pray for the time when the city has a mayor with both vision and leadership who will guide Toronto toward achieving its potential.
Peter M. Leighton, Toronto
....he had to get his head out of his ass so His union supporters could stick it to us.Will you remember that these are the same jerks who cancelled your Canada Day, your kid's summer camp, your golf game and your wedding photos in the park?
CUPE Leadership
The majority of city council
Your glorious mayor
When the concept of multiculturalism was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant "more pavilions at Folkfest";
The Islamic supremacist Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) Canadian event is publicized on the Hizb ut-Tahrir web site as being sponsored by “Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada” as part of HT’s “2009 Khilafah Campaign,” which included the July 19, 2009 HT event in the Chicago Oak Lawn, IL suburb. HT has advertised this event to be held at the Canadian govt-managed facility in Mississauga for: “Friday, July 31st, 6.30PM to 8.30PM, Frank Bean Lounge — Mississauga Valley Community Center, 1275 Mississauga Valley Blvd, L5A 3R8.” The HT Canada event has also been promoted by a Toronto, Canada website called “TorontoMuslims.com”. (R.E.A.L. contacted this Toronto Muslim website to ask why they were promoting such a supremacist organization’s event, and received no reply.)
The Hizb ut-Tahrir web site promoting the July 31 event in Canada also promotes a pamphlet (page 62) [pdf] that supports killing those individuals who leave Islam as guilty of “treason and a political attack on the Khilafah.”
They've de-linked it now, though the title still appears on the website. The "conclusion" starts at page 60, if you'd like to skip ahead to the juicy stuff.
Posted by KateEntering into Islam is essentially entering a contract. There can be no compulsion in it. People enter into Islam based on free will. As there is no force the intellectual conviction must be overwhelming especially since someone entering into Islam willingly knows full well there can be no return to non-Islam due to the death penalty - This cements the need for intellectual conviction. It also prevents those who would seek to publicly become Muslim then publicly apostate in order to bring doubt in the ideology. No ideological state would allow its basis to be openly questioned in society as this would lead to the weakening and possible removal and replacement of the ideology by another.
Apostasy is a question of what kind of person would openly and publicly abandon Islam with full knowledge that they will be killed for it, rather than either keeping it to themselves or leave the Khilafah. Hence, the death penalty only applies on those who in the Khilafah openly leave Islam, and choose to remain in the state despite knowing the law; this is considered an open attack on the basis of the state which is Islam, essentially it is viewed as treason and a political attack on the Khilafah in order to undermine it. No ideology would tolerate this.
