What About The Rights Of The Citizens......

.....when Will Comrade Miller order police to do their job?

Union turning up heat on public

Striking union to institute 15-minute minimum wait, 3-bag limit at dump sites in bid to increase pressure

By BRYN WEESE, SUN MEDIA Striking city workers are ready to turn up the heat on the picket lines.

For taxpayers, that could mean longer waits for, among other things, disposing trash at temporary dump sites.

According to Mark Ferguson, president of CUPE Local 416, which represents the city's outside workers, the plan so far has been to accommodate residents as much as possible and avoid the sometimes four-hour delays at the dumps experienced during the 16-day 2002 municipal strike.

But all that could change "at any time."

"That's absolutely possible," Ferguson said. "We've taken some decisions to ensure that the public is not inconvenienced unnecessarily so. But that strategy could change at any time, and certainly we would reserve our rights to change strategy if need be."

CUPE SOURCE

A source with CUPE Local 416 told the Sun yesterday the union has decided to institute a 15-minute minimum wait time and a three-bag limit per car at the transfer stations and temporary dump sites.

That puts an end to the no-wait policy previously in place at some locations where union members were even helping residents unload their trash.

One picket captain said he won't institute the new wait times and bag limits because his fight is not with residents.

The city's paramedics, too, are vowing today to increase their pressure tactics.

Although an essential services agreement ensures paramedic staffing levels can't drop below 75% during a strike, CUPE said yesterday there's more the paramedics could do to support the union.

As for the piles of trash residents are eager to see leave their parks and public spaces, Ferguson said the union would view any attempt to remove them from the dump sites as "crossing the picket line," which wouldn't be allowed without a court injunction.

"It's a visible indication of the important work that our members do every day," he said.

Also, both Ferguson and Ann Dembinski, president of CUPE Local 79 that represents the city's inside workers, are still waiting to see the "flexibility" promised by Miller Wednesday following an employee and labour relations committee meeting.

"We are still miles apart and we're looking for the flexibility that the mayor has talked about," Dembinski said. "It (the mayor's direction to the negotiators for more flexibility) means that, certainly, he's started to realize we're serious."

Ferguson and Dembinski were at Nathan Phillips Square yesterday for a solidarity barbecue organized by the United Steelworkers of America's Toronto area council for the more than 24,000 striking city workers.

Miller got tougher with the unions earlier this week when he accused them of not bargaining in the "real world" and failing to grasp the severity of the recession.

PR SPIN

But according to Ferguson, the unions understand the impacts of the recession just fine, but they also see through the city's spin.

"This set of negotiations is entirely about the City of Toronto using the recession as an excuse to gut our collective agreements," he said, noting the stumbling blocks are more than just the city's low-ball wage offer and their attempt to scrap the current sick-leave plan.

He said the city's financial woes, which Dembinski added that managers and council should have caught "a long time ago," are the result of the upper levels of government starving the city for funds, not because of Toronto's frontline union workers.

"When we have federal ministers making derogatory remarks regarding Toronto and its need for additional funding, we know exactly where the problem is," Ferguson said.

BRYN.WEESE@SUNMEDIA.CA