Allan Lamport, mayor of Toronto in the 1950s, put it well: “It’s hard making predictions, especially about the future.”
Will our civic leaders lock out unionized city staff in early February, or will they reach an agreement with them without taking that drastic step? Labour negotiations are so tricky it’s best not to be too firm in predicting how they might turn out.
With that caveat out of the way, I think the staffing future at City Hall looks troublesome.
Deputy mayor Doug Holyday is the mayor’s spokesperson on labour issues. He’s made many statements outlining that the difference with unionized city workers has more to do with work arrangements than it does with money. Thus, when Mark Ferguson, the head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Union 416 representing the city’s outside workers, said the local would be willing to forgo any increase in wages during the next three years, Holyday belittled the offer. Indeed, when the city and union negotiators got together two days later, the city apparently was prepared to offer a one-time payment to each employee.
For Holyday, and Mayor Ford’s other allies, the differences with the union aren’t about money. Holyday says the city wants to strip job security from the union contract. One aspect of that is seniority, which means that, when the city lays workers off, those laid off first are the ones who have been employed for the shortest period of time while those with more seniority and experience remain employed, some by being bumped down to a lower-level job. This is a common feature of labour contracts across the country and protects individual employees from being selectively picked off during a layoff (or under the guise of one) because they are unliked by management.
This seniority provision doesn’t prevent the city from downsizing, and doesn’t give anyone a job for life. But it does protect individual employees from bad managers, of which the city has its fair share.
He says the city wants to end the practice of allowing employees who have had to work without a break through lunch or dinner to go home early — but he hasn’t suggested a better way of responding to staff doing physical work (members of Local 416 collect garbage, clean streets and parks and the like) who are denied a chance to rest and eat.
He says the city wants to end the need to get the union’s consent before it changes shift schedules. No instances are given of the union unreasonably refusing changes in shift schedules, and surely good management practice should be to consult about working arrangements before changes are made. Apparently this is another example of employee power that Ford, Holyday and their colleagues think should end.
The problem with the approach that Holyday et al. are taking is that it is not about good management practices, creating more efficiencies, providing a better work experience or saving money. It’s about ideology. Too many stupid battles have been fought in the name of ideology, and it’s sad to think this kind of crazy scenario could be coming to Toronto.
Some say that the defeat the Ford faction experienced on the city budget — many of the cuts Ford had proposed were unexpectedly rejected by a slim majority of city council in mid-January — shows that city council would never countenance a lockout of staff and the stoppage to city services.
However, the decision on labour matters rests with a Ford-controlled committee, not with city council.
Where’s the sense of community in all of this? Isn’t that what we should expect? Things look like they could go very badly for the city in the next few weeks. Of course, you could be optimistic.
“We are on an irreversible course,” Mayor Lamport said, “but this could change.”
