Seriously, the revisionism over Miller is crazy. You might not have liked Transit City or the greening of suburban towers schemes, but those Miller policies were the most tangible policies aimed at the inner suburbs since amalgamation. Even the garbage strike meme is being written by people who, emotionally, wanted to lash out at the garbage workers. The contract he signed was fine for the city. It just wasn't enough punishment for folks mad about the strike.
I think a LOT of Ford's support came from folks wanting to toss the garbage workers out on the street. Not for savings, but for revenge. He won't get that vote again.
The 2009 garbage strike ( and the death at 40 Alexander St. during the strike with the resulting $10 million lawsuit ) was just after I retired in May 2009.
As City of Toronto Paramedics, although members of Local 416, we do not have, and do not seek, the right to strike. Nor can we be locked out. Our unresolved issues instead go to binding interest arbitration.
Having said that, as I understand it, the strike was entirely about the Sick Bank. Mayor Miller inherited that. No one can remember how long there had been a Sick Bank. It had been there for many years when I hired on with the Department in 1972.
They say it was the City who suggested the Sick Bank in lieu of a pay raise one year.
In all my years of working, and a lifetime of living, in Toronto not one civilian ever complained to me about the Sick Bank. Although I certainly ran into enough of the, "I pay your salary types."
In my opinion, it was only because the media whipped the public into such a frenzy about the Sick Bank and Gratuity that Mayor Miller and Local 416 were forced into battle.
I believe the new Driver-Loaders are members of Teamsters?
