This morning the Globe’s Jennifer Lewington and Brodie Fenlon are reporting some of the details from the deal reached by the City of Toronto and the union leaders (36 days on strike, 48,900 tonnes of trash, and for what? – H/T NNW):
The City of Toronto’s current unionized employees will have the option to keep their controversial banked sick days, but new hires will be denied the perk under the terms of a tentative deal workers are expected to vote on tomorrow, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Sources say the potential agreement is three years long – not four as Mayor David Miller and the city proposed publicly earlier in the dispute – and includes pay raises of 6 per cent over three years, slightly more than an earlier public offer, which proposed a 4-per-cent bump in its first three years…
First of all, the fact that these details are being leaked has to be a source of embarrassment for those at the negotiating table – unless it were done on purpose as some sort of trial balloon.
Then there are the details themselves. The Globe’s Marcus Gee expands on Lewington’s report:
...According to details gleaned by The Globe and Mail’s Jennifer Lewington, the city has won only a partial victory on the key issue of bankable sick leave. New hires will no longer be eligible for the sick days, but existing employees will have the option of keeping them.
There is also a new wage deal, of 6 per cent over three years, which is sweeter than the already-reasonable offer made by the city earlier this month.
That, in any case, is the first rough sketch we have of the deal, and it suggests Mr. Miller has a problem. Many city residents didn’t know about the sick-leave system in the first place and were angry that the unions were trying to cling to such a generous benefit when other people were clinging to their jobs, or losing them altogether. They supported the mayor in his push to get rid of the outdated system and save the city money, even if it took a strike…
The question I’m left with is what happens to the current employees sick days from this point forward? One of the commenters to Gee’s article suggests that they likely will end up having to use those sick days or lose them, which would mean people taking more time off work. So that would either mean less productivity or additional costs for the city to fill in where needed.
The Star is also reporting information from unnamed sources:
…Three sources confirmed that yesterday’s wee-hours breakthrough gives workers an option: take the immediate cash, or freeze what’s now in the bank and collect the payout upon retirement.
No further sick days can be accumulated, as the city moves to a short-term disability plan that provides benefits only to those who are ill or injured.
The compromise lets the city say it ended the sick-bank system, because no further days will accumulate and many workers will want the instant cash...
So does that mean that even the current workers will not be getting sick days even if they are legitimately sick?
Councillor Doug Holyday is concerned about overtime pay:
…Mr. Holyday is also seeking to move a motion at Friday’s special council meeting to prevent the city from paying out any overtime to returning employees to clean up the mess left in the wake of the strike.
“It just doesn’t make sense at all to put a method in place for these people to make back the money that they lost when they were on strike,” he said. “If they chose to go on strike and lose their pay, that’s up to them.”
You’re right, Councillor Holyday. It doesn’t make sense. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that were part of the deal. The Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy asked His Grayness that very question and received a non-answer.
The sick bank issue aside, how can David Miller justify granting a 6% raise over three years to public sector workers whose income is funded by many taxpayers who have lost their jobs, or experienced wage freezes or layoffs themselves?
Today’s editorial in the National Post suggests that competition is sorely lacking in the public sector and that it’s time to remedy that situation.
Toronto needs a mayor who’s willing to look at that scenario.
And that certainly isn’t David Miller.
* * * *
And on a lighter note: Important Thoughts about the end of the Toronto City Strike – ChuckerCanuk (H/T Jad)
* * * *
Wednesday Update: Strike Watch: Local 416 Vote Postponed Until Further Notice – CityNews
Miller faces heat for backing down on sick-day perk – Globe
Toronto on strike: City caves on bankable sick day reforms – National Post
When’s the next election? Toronto residents, had better send a clear message to this Mayor, that under his watch, has turned a world class city into a national disgrace.
Between him and the Premier, could we soon be hearing the old adage, “last one out of Ontario, turn off the lights”?….
Unfortunately, Toronto is a welfare city – and that is the reason why Libs do so well here. The government coffers’ emptiers are the people who keep voting for liberals and the liberals know this and hence more and more handouts to the teat suckers. Come next election, I fear the results will be the same.
O/T but could we get the news out about this — pass the word. Maybe other bloggers could post about the topic.
http://www.sandracruxblog.com/2009/07/28/chinas-xue-longlong-says-education-file-stolen/
Unbelievable story!
Check out Chucker’s Important Thoughts about the end of the Toronto City Strike” – it’s a good one.
I know this is very off topic Joanne and perhaps worthy of it’s own post but…. I see the Saint John Telegraph has apoligized to P M Harper for the in their words “inaccurate story which has should not have been published”. They also apoligized to the two reporters involved for adding to their story. The publisher is Jamie Irving, is this part of the Irving dynasty that seems to have a finger in every pie in the Maritimes? I know they (the Irvings) are upset that we are getting some of the work they felt was theirs i.e. the subs out here on the “left coast”.
The G 8 which should have been a time for Canadians to stand proud as the other Countries had come to P M Harpers point’s of view was overshadowed by this “Attack Journalism” IMO this story was fake but run over and over again, this was a funeral after all. Top it off with our PM Harper being a few seconds late for a photo-op. Just another day another T.I.O.S.F.J. (troops in our streets faux journalism) which was always too ironic considering Saint Pierre was the one who put the troops in our streets. But hey thats a “FACT”. Interesting country our Canada, at least now we have the “Fifth Estate”tm that would be you and me the Blogosphere, and to hell with the “Forth Estate” don’t buy their papers, or watch their “news” programs, hurts my old eyes anyway, it’s usually spinning way too fast. LOL
Yeah, Bubba, it is worthy of it’s own post. I notice Stephen Taylor has an excellent post up on it now.
Hope Joanne does one as well. That Kind of pure fabrication against the Prime Minister of the country should be subject to litigation.
I really like Stephen’s Blog but there’s a resident Liberal Troll who takes over all threads, I got tired of the personal attacks and screed,making it difficult to have a civil debate or exchange points of view.
Feel free to discuss the issue here Liz.
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do a post on it.
everyone check out NNW (national news watch)
TJ apologizes to the best Prime Minister Stephen Harper
this is a first many more to come
fh
I wonder if we’ll see an apology from WK too?
Hah. Not very likely.
Joanne — Another O/T. I will be putting the new “The McGuinty Watch” on your header bar shortly. It is at least a start. It will be alphabetical based on topic or theme. The next Ontario election campaign is now officially underway. LOL
So, expect the gremlin to be around!
Great! Thanks Sandy. Will there be room?
Wafer wafer> O/T but ….
“Not Waiting For The Asteroid
The Telegraph-Journal sincerely apologizes to the Prime Minister…
The story stated that a senior Roman Catholic priest in New Brunswick had demanded that the Prime Minister’s Office explain what happened to the communion wafer which was handed to Prime Minister Harper during the celebration of communion at the funeral mass. The story also said that during the communion celebration, the Prime Minister “slipped the thin wafer that Catholics call ‘the host’ into his jacket pocket”.
There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now. Our reporters Rob Linke and Adam Huras, who wrote the story reporting on the funeral, did not include these statements in the version of the story that they wrote. In the editing process, these statements were added without the knowledge of the reporters and without any credible support for them.
…20 days after publication. Do reporters even follow the news anymore?
h/t John G.
Update: Stephen Taylor has lots, lots more – “That’s quite an edit!”
Update 2: This is finally trickling into the mainstream this morning. The Calgary Herald notes “Both the names of the newspaper’s editor, Shawna Richer, and the publisher, Jamie Irving, do not appear on the masthead of Tuesday’s edition.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/011906.html#comments
I just added a short new post on that story Maz2.
Wow. Joanne. It just fit! Now, I can put the Harper Gov’t Record last if you like. Just tell me where you want it and I can renumber the pages.
Hey, now everyone knows how we do this stuff.LOL
Oh well, everyone else is on wafergate!
[...] Just another nail in the coffin of a desperate, dinosaur industry. (H/T to many readers in the preceding post.) [...]
Ha! Cool, Sandy. Thanks very much. Please do whatever you think looks best.
I feel like Toronto trash. Must lay down and get some rest.
(Unintended rhyme)
Liberal’s brand of “Special K” sure wanted to make political hay with the story did he not? An apology from him would be nice but not likely.
BTW Joanne, you don’t happen to live downwind from Toronto’s trash do you? Anyway, get well quick!
The McGuinty Watch is now up.
LizJ, I have also found the Liberal Trolls at Stephen Taylor’s Blog abusive. They must be the same ones that hang out at MacLeans. They appear to be Kady’s best friends.
Sandy @ #21 – Nicely done! Thanks for this. We have two years to build the evidence and make our case.
Liz @#20 – Thanks for the good wishes. It’s just some kind of head cold that makes me really tired.
Hi,
I am one of those, whom many have felt it fair to malign in the news. I am a Local 79 member. I have and continue to be on strike until the ratification has concluded. I personally think we would have gotten a better deal, the same deal the other locals got if we had gone to arbitration, and we could have done that on day 2.
I work on special systems, though not recognized as being special myself,nor my role, though replacing me would be tough as I developed the software that I support, and without knowing it all who visit and live in Toronto rely on. It is a major burden to hold that responsibility and know what it means even when your direct supervisors and managers don’t.
There are many things wrong with the way the city runs, and it is unfortunate. I have many medical issues, the new plan is going to hurt me much, I support a family that has two autistic kids, and I myself am on the spectrum.
I can’t say that I have shared the garbage problems of the city, I live in Brampton, I can’t afford to live in the city. No the salary of a System Integrator class 2 which tops out below 70k is below what I could make in another private sector position, or even in the public sector around the city.
You say that we chose to not go to work. Personally I did not choose to go on strike, and I will not cause myself the problems that come from scabbing. I didn’t even choose to be in a union. Those are the rules, we’re stuck with them.
I don’t blame middle management, they get the worst deal, they have all things dictated to them, and our collective agreements are the basis for improving their working conditions.
I don’t hate the public, I live to serve, I am also a Scout Leader and am prepared to put my life on the line in times of crisis. I do wish the public would take a broader view though. instead of trying to place blame on the union, understand where we are coming from. It won’t take much understanding to realize that we aren’t to blame.
You might also be surprised that I don’t hate the upper management and counselors. In the end they are the only ones who stand to win in this situation, but it is the nature of the beast. It is because of the nature of the beast that we need a union for protection,in much the same way that some people turn to the United Nations.
What is the nature of the beast? Well, a politician is successful only if elected. To get elected you make promises to the people about what you will do. These promises usually center around improving services or freezing/ lowering taxes, usually both. The idea of doing both is utter folly and totally asinine, but it sounds good so they get elected.
Now you have improved services, with no new money unless totally funded by user fees, and now you have to pay for it. All that is left is salaries. So they try. that is why we had a strike. And the sick bank. That is really a red herring in all of this, since the payouts were already capped at 6 months full salary for a few, half salary for the rest.(local 79 inside workers, I can’t speak to 416). So the payout cap is all ready reached if you work almost 7 years without any sick days. So for a 40k a year position, thats 10k at retirement for most, 20k for some as a reward for not getting sick. It started long ago to retain workers and encourage good attendance, after a certain amount of time, you really couldn’t afford to walk away from it. The long timers who had started working here a long time ago were promised a full payout and they worked tirelessly to not be sick. Taking that away is a major betrayal of trust. This was for many like an RRSP, only they paid in by working when sick, trading shifts when sick, using vacation days instead of being sick. Imagine if a few years before you retired the RRSP you had been grooming and contributing to was suddenly going to pay you a maximum return that was considerably smaller than you had been promised when you started paying into it. Lets compound it by saying you couldn’t move it to another plan, and that the payout you get will be the same as somebody who just started paying into the same plan 7 years ago. You started 35 years ago. If you tell me that you wouldn’t be mad as heck, I’d call you a liar to your face.
Mark Ferguson said in an interview once that people shouldn’t look at it as we don’t/ didn’t get that so they shouldn’t and more along the lines of they get/ got that, why don’t we? the difference is subtle, but important. Instead of bitter resentment, you have the seeds to improve the way things are.
Something else to consider, other Toronto and surrounding unions were given raises and had no issues like this, why do we? Imagine working in your office, sitting next to five colleagues. You all have different workloads, but do the same general job. (I know, we aren’t all fire fighters and police, but for the purpose of analogy, we are ALL civil servants) Now lets also say that they are given less work overall to do, but all of it critical priority. You are given much more to do, though it’s not on the surface as critical unless it doesn’t get done. The boss comes in and gives all of your co-workers a raise, but not you. How would you feel? If there were any factor to distinguish you from your colleagues such as gender, sexual identity, race, religion, age, disability, skin colour, then you would be filing a labour grievance based on discrimination, and rightly so. In this case, the discriminating factor is your phone number, yours has a 397 exchange, your colleagues have a 392.
An out right acknowledgment of the unfairness of the deal the other unions got compared to what can be afforded may have gone a long way to smoothing the negotiations. Just the simple validation of the unfortunate reality and that we are worth what the others got, and if we work together maybe we can find ways of making it work so it can be offered next time. In my department grunts don’t get to help shape things, so our ideas to save money are not considered.
This whole experience has left me jaded,and horribly depressed. I all ready get to feel undervalued at work, and it stresses me badly, I have actually felt less stressed since going on strike even though the lack of steady pay hurts greatly. I’ll be going back into my own personal Hell to serve you, the citizens of Toronto, even though you don’t know what I do or who I am. Even though you cast curses at me and hate me for my employer. I have never been thanked for what I do, nor gotten the benefit directly for my efforts. Yet I will return out of a sense of duty to the greater good of the millions of people who rely on my work everyday. I will return tough I could easily make a larger salary with the same or better benefits much closer to home instead of the 90 km round trip I make everyday. I will return even though I have enough medical problems, many stress induced, certainly worsened by being there. I will return when I have been told that I could take a permanent disability pension and not have to return again. Yet I will return for you.
I don’t ask for your pity, or your sympathy. Do not thank me because you think I want it, do it only if you feel it. Don’t hate me, my union brothers and sisters, the managers, or the elected officials. If there is any fitting target for your hate, it is the beast, hate that. Ironically, remember that you feed the beast. Each voter who votes from their own selfish needs instead of the greater need of the city feeds it. It charges it with mandates for trying to get everything for nothing. It is the beast and this is how it feeds. Please remember this at election time, when you vote. Ultimately, we all have to pay the piper, in Hamlin, the cost was the towns children. Every deal with the Devil is always collected, at the price of your soul. And when you vote with self interest, 36 day civic strikes is the result.
How can we expect government to be responsible when we reward them with votes for irresponsible promises.
If you have read to the end, thank you for your time and I hope you have found a different perspective educating or enlightening. I wsih you all well and a long life with blessings from whichever higher power you choose to believe in.
Jim.
Wow. Thanks for weighing in here Jim. You’ve written quite the tome there.
It will take a while to digest it all, but I sure do appreciate you giving us your point of view.
BTW, I think that if anyone has been maligning the unions lately, it’s been David Miller.
thanks for the kind words, the people at the globe weren’t so kind.
from the sounds of it they would like to see us all gone.
It may sound socialist, but if we aren’t working together, then we are working against each other and wasting energy.
The same thing happens at the federal level. How can a government be effective if it is held hostage in a minority. We have had too many federal elections in the last little while.
It’s funny to look at voting patterns in T.O. people vote Liberal, but have what could be considered the most anti-socialist view point.
Sometimes it’s easy to see why those in other parts of Canada aren’t very fond of Toronto. It’s a tough decision, maybe I should apply to the city of brampton or region of peel. I could make more, walk to work. we have not had the same labour issues.
Jim I heard last night that your local is ticked off with the mayor that you can’t be back to work by Thursday. Is that right?
That is what I heard. our union head wasn’t happy with the deal either. I’ve heard return times from Thursday to next Tuesday. The mayor has said in the media that we can’t return until council ratifies the deal as well. Then some of us will still be out because they reset all of our security, phone, and computer access. It all needs to be turned back on.
The practical issues aside, I would love to know how we find out today that there isn’t a deal for 416. Since the deal for us was we would both (79 and 416) be on the line until both had ratified, where does that leave us?
If we ratify today, and the city follows on Friday, and job action after would be an illegal strike, conversely if we turn our backs on our brothers in 416 we break an agreement.
The question is, why was our bargaining team not informed by theirs that there wasn’t a deal yet?
I go to the info session later and vote, I should have some more information after that. I couldn’t even find out if I am picketing tonight or not yesterday at the West Strike HQ.
I hope things work out for you Jim. It sounds to me like you just want to get back to your job.
Some info here, BTW.
But things do seem to be changing by the minute
yes and no.
duty and paycheck say yes. the supervisor i have says no. since the announcement of a deal my anxiety has risen and my sleep more disturbed.
read my last comment. its not written to convey the right context.
my supervisor and my department do not get along and the effect is detrimental to both my physical and mental health.
Sorry to hear that Jim. Maybe it would indeed be a good idea to look around a bit in Brampton and Peel.
It looks like a good deal, not as good as arbitration for us, but better overall in that it came from bargaining with the best interests of the city and it’s resident in mind. It may not be enough to keep people from leaving for more lucrative public sector jobs in the other cities though. At least in the technical and engineering fields. I expect the drain to worsen these areas. many of our engineering staff end up being straight from university and having less than 5 years before moving on.
At 14 years (the prior 5 years with a contrator working on the system) I have the third highest seniority in our department at our work location.
It may not be enough to keep people from leaving for more lucrative public sector jobs in the other cities though.
And perhaps that’s the trouble with unions – individual talent is not widely recognized in unions. JMHO.
You would think that was the case, but if you contrast the non-union and union, we get a much better deal.
The city stripped many things from management that they had like raises and sick bank with the attitude of if you don’t like it, get another job.
In the end this is worse for talent retention, and underlines why the employees need a union for protection. It also explains some of the bullying we get from supervisors out of shear jealousy.