Two Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) locals [branches] went on strike on June 22: ‘outside workers’ (including rubbish collectors, parks employees and sewer and water-main workers) and ‘inside workers’ (daycare workers and clerks amongst others). Between them, this amounts to 30,000 CUPE members, of which about 24,000 are out on strike. The rest are classified as essential workers.
The strike is a response to a proposal by the City to reduce the annual pay increase of civic workers, bringing it out of line with other City employees and reneging on former contracts. In addition, the City wants to withdraw other benefits won in past union struggles – the ability to ‘bank’ sick-leave days being the most controversial issue. The unions have said they will not compromise by giving back gains which they’ve fought hard for: the City says that this is the reality of the recession, and that it simply can’t afford to give the workers what they are demanding.
The focus of public attention has been on the rubbish collectors. Toronto is hot; the uncollected rubbish stinks and potentially poses a health risk. The City has responded by creating temporary dumps in parks in low-income areas, right in the middle of summer holidays, whilst apartment blocks in wealthier areas pay to get their rubbish removed privately. As the strike enters week three, attention is shifting to the small business losses, particularly those on Toronto Island to which ferries have been cancelled. Some businesses have had to close - Centreville Amusement Park, now, closed, employs more than 400 workers in season.
The last civic strike in Toronto was in 2002, with similar outcry over uncollected rubbish. The strike was ended when the provincial government stepped in and invoked ‘back to work’ legislation, forcing the workers to go back to work (the press was quick to note that this was conveniently right before a visit to Toronto by the pope). An increasing number of strikes in Canada are being ended in this way, and it looks likely that the current one might be also. The repeated use of this legislation in this way effectively criminalises striking which becomes overly inconvenient for government and simply overrides trade union rights. The legislation purportedly allows the government to break deadlocked disputes between workers and employers – but in this case another level of government is also the employer!
