City Workers Strike 2009

[Dilla]

from the Star article

Pat Daley, a spokesperson for Local 416, backed up Ferguson's statement that the union had managed to "fight back all of the concessions the city sought from us."

All 118 pages of concessions? she was asked.

"Yes," she said.

Councillor Doug Holyday said this afternoon that the union must be putting a positive spin on the deal. And if they aren't, Mayor David Miller would have a lot of explaining to do.

Holyday, a member of the city's labour relations committee that gives direction to the bargaining officials, said he spoke to the mayor early today and the impression left was that the deal was done "within the parameters set by the labour relations committee."

Those parameters clearly included an end to the sick bank provisions that was a big sticking point in the talks.

"They couldn't have settled something contrary without coming back to the labour relations committee," said Holyday.

"If we were to take all the concessions off the table, let them keep sick bank and pay higher than we want to, the show would be over. The mayor would walk the plank. The mayor would be done. And he would have a tough time to get the deal ratified at council."

This is interesting. If Miller did concede these things, and council does not ratify the deal, and the union does, sparks are going to fly. Big time.

 

[TOareaFan]

Why would they need to hire new workers? Say in any given day there are 10workers calling in sick. Wouldn't those shifts just be given to someone else who either needed shifts or would be getting paid overtime?

Whatever you do (new worker, added shifts to someone else, overtime) it still results in two people getting paid for the same shift and, as a result, a greater cost to the city.

So eliminating the the banking of holidays will just shift a cost from the future into the present.

 

[andrejeffry]

City dropped all concessions, unions says.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/672298

Holy Mother of God, so let me get this:

- The taxpayers has to put up with 35+ days of garbage, especially those that have to live next to the dump sites

- The taxpayers has to bear the cost of negotiations, lawyers, hotel-meeting rooms, etc.

- The unions used dirty tactic of using outside workers to support the demand of inside workers and in the end got all that they wanted

- And we're suppose to be the employers?!?!

If we're to surrender, why not from day 1? why did we have to go thru all this ****.

F U Miller!!!!!

 

[Whoaccio]

City dropped all concessions, union says

CUPE Local 416 president Mark Ferguson said today that the union fought back all of the concessions the city had sought but one councillor says that if that is true, Mayor David Miller has some explaining to do.

Ferguson wouldn't give specifics of the tentative deal reached with the city early today, but said that the support of his members gave the "bargaining committee the ability to fight back all of the concessions," the city sought.

"As I have said from the beginning, we will end this strike like we began," he told a news conference this morning at the Scarborough hotel where his local's negotiation took place.

Pat Daley, a spokesperson for Local 416, backed up Ferguson's statement that the union had managed to "fight back all of the concessions the city sought from us."

All 118 pages of concessions? she was asked.

"Yes," she said.

Councillor Doug Holyday said this afternoon that the union must be putting a positive spin on the deal. And if they aren't, Mayor David Miller would have a lot of explaining to do.

Holyday, a member of the city's labour relations committee that gives direction to the bargaining officials, said he spoke to the mayor early today and the impression left was that the deal was done "within the parameters set by the labour relations committee."

Those parameters clearly included an end to the sick bank provisions that was a big sticking point in the talks.

"They couldn't have settled something contrary without coming back to the labour relations committee," said Holyday.

" If we were to take all the concessions off the table, let them keep sick bank and pay higher than we want to, the show would be over. The mayor would walk the plank. The mayor would be done. And he would have a tough time to get the deal ratified at council."

The tentative deal was reached this morning to end the strike by Toronto's garbage collectors and other outside workers after 35 long and miserable days.

Ferguson said the next step would be for the city to make a deal with striking inside workers represented by CUPE Local 79, something that happened early this afternoon.

A ratification vote could come as early as Wednesday.

Which contrasts with Miller's comments in the Globe:

Mayor David Miller said the terms of the tentative deal -- which will remain confidential until workers vote on the deal Wednesday -- meet the goals he and the city laid out at the start of talks.

"They [the terms] are fair to workers, affordable to Torontonians and will allow the city the flexibility it needs," he said, adding that "without question, this has been a difficult period."

Asked directly, the Mayor refused to say whether the union agreed to give up its sick-day plan, a controversial program that allows full-time municipal employees to bank 18 sick days a year and cash them out at retirement. The program had been a stumbling block to a deal.

For some reason, I am more inclined to trust the Unions on what really happened. I don't see how they could claim to their members they secured X only to present them with something totally different. Miller could easily just issue vague niceisms about flexibility and hope nobody remembers in a few years. Union bosses will have to get this ratified within the next day or two, so they can't realistically hope to befuddle anyone.

Assuming that logic holds up, there is no way in hell I will vote for Milller. The City basically had CUPE over a barrel so it seems totally incomprehensible that it would cave because of some lame CUPE deadline.
EDIT: Whoops, Hydrogen already posted the Star article.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Pat Daley, a spokesperson for Local 416, backed up Ferguson's statement that the union had managed to "fight back all of the concessions the city sought from us."

All 118 pages of concessions? she was asked.

"Yes," she said.

Councillor Doug Holyday said this afternoon that the union must be putting a positive spin on the deal. And if they aren't, Mayor David Miller would have a lot of explaining to do.

Holyday, a member of the city's labour relations committee that gives direction to the bargaining officials, said he spoke to the mayor early today and the impression left was that the deal was done "within the parameters set by the labour relations committee."

Those parameters clearly included an end to the sick bank provisions that was a big sticking point in the talks.

"They couldn't have settled something contrary without coming back to the labour relations committee," said Holyday.

"If we were to take all the concessions off the table, let them keep sick bank and pay higher than we want to, the show would be over. The mayor would walk the plank. The mayor would be done. And he would have a tough time to get the deal ratified at council."

What's worse, we can't write or phone our City Councilor (Toronto City Councilor Directory) to encourage them not to ratify the agreements (presuming we don't agree with it) because details of the tentative deal won't be announced until after it has been voted on by Locals 79 & 416.

I'm spitting nails right now. This is unacceptable.

 

[Dilla]

Does council ratify it before the unions do, then?

'Cause if they don't...(and it's as bad as I'm thinking it may be)

 

[GraphicMatt]

The Star is the only news source I can find leaning so heavily on the "Unions got everything they asked for" story. It's all kind of odd.

 

[shelfun]

I thought getting paid is a good reason to drag one's lazy behind to work? What are they gonna come up with next once this banking sick leave thing is old?! If they are not happy with their overall renumeration, they should just quit & go seek employment with some "la la land company" that will offer them the world. I think that will be good for the city. All of them quit so the city can privatise the garbage collection. Win - win situation.

 

[afransen]

In addition, the last thing the city (or any employer) should want is to encourage people to come in when they ARE sick. It's not a matter of being tough or wimpy - it's about the potential to spread illnesses that could severely affect overall productivity.

Sick days shouldn't have anything to do with a potential retirement pay-out.

I doubt a garbage collector is going to spread illness when he has the sniffles. One, he's in contact with few people, and two, he's already handling garbage. Most colds are transmitted through contact, and these people should be washing their hands before using common surfaces.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Does council ratify it before the unions do, then?

'Cause if they don't...(and it's as bad as I'm thinking it may be)

CityTV news reports that the unions will vote for the new contract on Wednesday, then it goes to Council on Friday.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

A bunch of us were talking about this issue over the weekend.

All of us started with the firm belief that bankable sick days should be eliminated and that the cost to the city/taxpayer of what is essentially a retirement bonus was too high and made no sense.

Then we thought/discussed it through and ended up not so sure......the issue became how many additional workers the city would have to hire if you eliminated the banking of sick days. Under the current situation the city needs all of its current workers but a goodly number of them are incented (by the bankable sick days) to not take days off when they get the sniffles or are otherwise sick with minor ailments.

If that incentive to drag yourself into work was gone, you could expect that all workers would us all/most of their sick days in every year....so how many new workers would you have to hire to cover those sick days?

So, in the end, we ended up thinking that the best the city should target would be a reduction in the value of the banked sick days while still leaving an incentive for the employee to not use the days.

So, we agreed the city should probably have targets (in decreasing importance) with regards to this issue:

1. as a minimum the days should be paid out at the wage they were earned at (ie. emplyoee banks a sick day in a year he earns $10 per hour should not be paid $40 an hour for that day just because that is what he earns when he retires).

2. As a second value reducer perhaps a formula wherein the bank days are worth some percentage (75%?) of the hourly wage they were earned at.

3. While grandfathering (with the above adjustments) bankable sick days for current employees...get the union to agree that future employees would not have this benefit.

The problem I have with that argument is that once you've banked those 18 sick days (pretty easy to do in say 5 years) then there is no incentive not to use the sick days so you are stuck back at the same point of having to have backup staff to cover for 'sick' workers. The only difference being that the city has this huge liability hanging over it's head that it has to pay out when an employee retires.

Further to your points

1: So bank the dollar value of the sick days and not the day 'value'. Still that means that an employee will still use up all of their sick days during the early years (when they are making $20/hr) and then start banking their sick days later in their career. The city would still need to cover for the sick days that the employee uses during the early days.

2: Perhaps... Maybe a sunrise and sunset type clause where: As above sick days are banked as dollars earned at the current rate, but there is a reducer applied to either a) how many years it has been since the employee has been hired and/or b) how long it has been since that employee has banked those sick days at retirement. As well as a similar reduction added to the tail end of their service that reduces the value of those banked days. Say for example. During the first 5 years of service sick dollars can only be banked at 75% of their value 6 - 10 years of service you can bank 90%, 16 - 20 years you can bank 100% and 20 - 25 years of service 90% anything over 26 years is banked at 75%. At retirement days banked 15 years or more before retirement are kept 100% of banked value, 10 years are banked at 90% of banked value, 5 years banked at 75% and anything banked less than 5 years before retirement is reduced by 65%. While complex it could reduce the city's liability and encourage a more evenly spread out pattern of banking those days discouraging both loading up at the beginning (and getting paid at current rates) and the end of their service time.

3. This is absolute key. If the city failed in getting at least this then they failed in their negotiations period.

 

[kEiThZ]

I am betting Miller et al. caved. It'll be interesting to see how he spins this one....and to see how he's going to get out of the fiscal mess he'll have next year now that he's failed to bring labour costs in line.

 

[cdr108]

I am betting Miller et al. caved. It'll be interesting to see how he spins this one....and to see how he's going to get out of the fiscal mess he'll have next year now that he's failed to bring labour costs in line.

If Miller et al. caved in, then what was the point of subjecting the citizens to 35+days of this strike ?!?!?

 

[simuls]

If the city caving is the case, then everyone who objects needs to contact their city councillor and demand they not pass it on Friday. Public pressure to not accept that deal would kill Miller and the Union at the same time! Toronto's doing fine without the garbage workers, so keep 'em out for another couple of months say I.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

If the city caving is the case, then everyone who objects needs to contact their city councillor and demand they not pass it on Friday. Public pressure to not accept that deal would kill Miller and the Union at the same time! Toronto's doing fine without the garbage workers, so keep 'em out for another couple of months say I.

Precisely. Take action and find the contact information for your City Councilor here