Rob Ford’s first—and nastiest—fight will be with organized labour. The unions are saying “bring it”
(Illustration: Steve Brodner)
The garbage strike of 2009 wasn’t just about trash. That summer, labour sparked a fuse that would crackle and sizzle for the next year and a half, lighting Rob Ford’s path to mayoral victory. The fuse is still burning, and the expected detonation has the potential not only to release organized labour’s grip on city hall, but to force an overhaul of labour’s relationship with employers across the country.
There was virtually no public sympathy for the strike from the outset. Many of us already knew that city workers enjoyed a fortress of entitlements, including guaranteed wage increases and ironclad job security. The sticking point of the strike—preserving the right to bank unused sick days and collect on them upon retirement—was where outsiders felt entitlement crossed over to obscenity. Especially during a recession. Organized labour, once the white knight of the downtrodden, had become the establishment itself: a cartel of unaccountable elites that could hold the city hostage at their discretion.
It didn’t help that David Miller had been waltzing with the unions since first running for mayor in 2003. Through two elections, he’d received the political endorsement and resources (both human and financial) of the powerful Toronto and York Region Labour Council, an umbrella group for hundreds of unions, including the two striking locals with whom he was now negotiating. You had to wonder whose side he was really on.
After 39 days and much posturing, a deal was struck that eviscerated Miller’s already diminishing credibility. Among other sundry gifts, senior workers could continue to bank sick days through a grandfather clause, and all workers received scheduled pay increases totalling six per cent over three years. The entire event felt like kabuki theatre, wherein Miller played the tough guy as he winked at his buddies across the table.
When it was over, Mark Ferguson, president of the Toronto Civic Employees Union (TCEU) Local 416, and Ann Dembinski, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79, emerged from the ashes of battle to blithely announce that the strike had set labour relations back decades. To most Torontonians, the irony was thick: the last thing taxpayers cared about at that moment was how to keep the unions happy.
Canada’s labour laws and union protections are so strong as to be globally unique. We live in the only country where a person can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. That’s understood to be a rights violation everywhere else organized labour exists, including all of Europe. Here, union members must pay their dues, and a decade of polling suggests that a super-majority of them are opposed to the idea of their money being used to fund political action and activism. According to John Mortimer of LabourWatch, an employee rights group, no other country allows a unionized worker to be fired from their job should they refuse to fund political activities. As such, it’s tough to know whether labour leaders in Toronto really do have the support of the majority of workers they represent. Rob Ford is no doubt hoping they don’t.
Ford’s mayoral campaign—aggressive, populist and startlingly sparse on detail—was, of course, all about saving Torontonians heaps of money. And there is only one way to get that done: dramatically renegotiate or void union contracts. City hall’s largest line item is the cost of organized labour. So Ford’s platform centred on two promises: eliminating the city’s fair wage policy and privatizing garbage collection. Those two things alone are understood by the leaders of organized labour as a full-on frontal assault on their legal and political standing here and across the country. If the relevant unions lose one or both of these battles, it will change the economic landscape for good. As a result, union leaders and their allies on city council are already preparing to defend themselves.
So when will the battle begin? Many believe that Ford will act as quickly as he can, while voters still feel the pulse of their decision and his mandate is strongest. His promise to eliminate the fair wage policy—with an eye to generating savings of $80 million a year—would be a logical place to start, assuming our new mayor has the stomach for it and can prove the savings are there to be had.
One good thing about Ford brash and uncouth style, is that it will serve us great when dealing with these big nasty bully unions who claim they alook after people’s interest.
Yeah!! Let’s hear it for a bigger bully called FORD! Now you have met your match, no more weasel called Miller to deal with. Run them down, FORD!
December 22, 2010 at 9:30 am | by PeeI know who’s more deluded…John Mraz and Torontolife for always spinning these stories against Rob Ford!!!
He has not made his move yet on this issue and the criticism and skepticism is already there. I’ll bet that you weren’t predicting what David Miller would do with the city workers when we endured almost 2 months of filth just to lie down and get steamrolled by the union. Then…to allow those same workers to collect overtime (900 hours of it!!!) to clean up the mess they caused when they walked off the job to begin with. As long as we don’t have a repeat performance like that…I’m good.
Perhaps the doom and gloom picture you paint is just to get people to respond…either way…it’s pretty clear your position on all this. The election is over. Let it go. Let Ford do his thing and judge him in 4 years.
December 22, 2010 at 10:37 am | by LawrenceWell said PEE & LAWRENCE!!
In a nutshell, thats all Toronto Lif eis away – to provoke us. Dont let them get the better of ya: At least me know that ford wont be run over and give in like how David Miller, our worse mayor in history did with this city workers and the city. So yeah, Toronto Life position is clear, but lets see ford come out the winner when he fire them all and get people who really wants to work!
December 22, 2010 at 10:56 am | by CRITICLawrence #2, I don’t know what article you read, but this one seemed, if anything, pretty pro-Ford (and certainly anti-Toronto public sector unions).
“… a scenario that Ford should be prepared for if he’s committed to making the city solvent and livable for the long term.”
That reads to me as a pretty straight-up endorsement of Ford taking a tough line with unions.
Also:
December 23, 2010 at 8:33 am | by E G for example“Let Ford do his thing and judge him in 4 years.”
Most problems caused by Miller can be attributed to exactly this kind of attitude among the citizens: Elect, then ignore.
you’re all morons. Really.
December 23, 2010 at 9:47 am | by MarcyThis is nothing more than knee-jerk union-bashing (and Miller-bashing) thinly disguised as a critique of Rob Ford. The conservative elite represented by Toronto Life won’t be happy until all public sector jobs are farmed out to private interests that pay minimum wage with no benefits. This is not good public policy.
December 23, 2010 at 10:31 am | by Bill MalcolmF the unions! More power to Rob Ford – the only honest politician!!!
December 23, 2010 at 11:24 am | by DavidShame on John Mraz
“Clearly Ford believes that the days of worker exploitation are long gone” Unionised work places are one of the few arenas where women are paid equally to men for the work they do. Long live the fair wage policy!
December 23, 2010 at 11:39 am | by JPEt Tu, Toronto Life?
As for the majority of the commenters here, Unions were created to protect “the little guy” (that Ford lies about “respecting”) from corporate interests — read the long history of how organized labour (that our ancestors fought hard for) lifted us out of inhumane working conditions. To characterize them as “bullies” when they’re fighting the real bullies on our behalf is just ignorant.
But go ahead and continue to swallow the real elite’s self-serving propaganda and hate the people who are there to fight for your rights while worshiping Ford and all his obscenely rich cronies who want us all working for them like slaves in some economic protectorate zone in Indonesia — I hope you all enjoy sweat-shops and working till you die (or begging when you’re sick) with your little ones slaving away at your side because that’s where your narrow-minded, school-yard name-calling is bringing us!
December 23, 2010 at 12:24 pm | by MiheeMiller is our worst mayor ever? It always shocks me what a short memory people have. Other than the trash strike, Miller has a good track record. He helped bring our city back into the black while simultaneously working to bring up the quality of life for many citizens with more accessible transit, revitalization of low income areas, etc. So far, all I see Ford doing is costing us money by canceling a transit plan that already have millions of dollars invested into it and cutting out a car tax that brings us enormous revenue, while making negligible cuts like trimming councillor budgets and cutting out coffee and snacks at meetings.
December 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm | by IvyI’m still holding my breath until he pulls something significantly positive out of the bag. And I really hope he doesn’t succeed with the fair wage policy because that sets a dangerous precedent.
I’m curious why you’ve decided to ignore the union that is a major problem, aka the police.
aka The workers who represent the largest portion of the City’s budget.
aka The workers who have received the largest pay raises over the last decade or so.
aka Rob Ford’s target for 100 unnecessary and expensive new positions while every other department faces budget cuts and ongoing understaffing.
Ford’s not really interested in sustainable financing of the City’s needs, he’s just an extremist ideologue who can’t do basic math, and is fully comfortable with the poor continuing to get poorer.
The public unions definitely haven’t been doing themselves any PR favours lately, fighting for their (sometimes extravagant) entitlements and then declaring that they won at the end of each bargaining session. They’ve left the crumbling middle-class and exploding low-income citizens asking why union workers get paid so much instead of the real question: why they themselves are paid so little and offered so little job security by their ever-richer bosses.
December 23, 2010 at 2:57 pm | by John DuncanI recommend everyone go to the Fair Wage Office site and actually look at it because the Labour movements spins it for what it is not and most people don’t bother to actually look. It is quite simply a Construction Union subsidy program and says virtually nothing about any other group of workers. On top of that for all Building Work the Building Trades Union allies to Miller have a complete labour monopoly that disqualifies the vast majority of qualified GTA contractors and workers from even bidding on work they pay for with their taxes. To use the word “Fair” in refernce to the FWP it is perverse as it is actually a policy of discrimination and a barrier to entry against anyone who does want to join up with Miller’s private sector political buddies. Construction Union monoply is bad news for any democracy in case anyone hasn’t been reading the continuous flow of corruption stories coming out of the union only Quebec construction industry. If Ford doesn’t put an end to it Toronto is going down the same rotten road.
December 23, 2010 at 3:33 pm | by McDFunny how most anti-Ford commenters claim he’s against the poor–yet most poor people I know prefer him over the other candidates, who stood for unions and city workers. These are not poor people — they have some of the best wages and benefits in the world. I for one believe Ford represents my interests as a low-income Torontonian far better than Miller and Pantalone and even Smitherman.
December 23, 2010 at 7:23 pm | by AlainMayor Ford is the worst nightmare for the City of Toronto unions. However if Ford is a mensch, he will conduct himself with outmost respect for the union leadership and negotiate fair, decent wage/benefit plans for all the City of Toronto unions. The unions will also have to be reasonable in their demands and compromise on some issues that are not priority. As soon as the first union contract expires we, the people of Toronto will get to see how Mayor Ford handles the situation. We know we don’t want a management/union war. If Ford thinks that a long drawn strike will save the City money; yes it will but at what ultimate cost to the taxpayers of the City of Toronto?
December 23, 2010 at 8:23 pm | by Laura Ellen SchonWait, people are reading this as an anti-Ford story? Wow. How much of a Ford fan do you have to be to read this YAY YAY FORD FORD piece as anti-Ford?
The union lost last summer. New hires don’t get the sick bank anymore. Thank you, Miller.
OTOH, cheering for union-busting for the sake of union-busting, like Toronto Life does here, is ridiculous.
Disclaimer: I work in the private sector. We don’t have a union. But some jobs are naturally suited for unionization. I support city unions.
December 24, 2010 at 1:19 am | by Leo