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link — Comments Off on Labour Crisis Averted
06
Feb 12

Labour Crisis Averted

Torontoist’s Hamutal Dotan:

In a press conference at 8:30 this morning, CUPE 416 president Mark Ferguson announced that negotiators has reached a tentative deal with the City of Toronto. CUPE 416, which represents approximately 6,000 outside workers, had been in the midst of what everyone described as an incredibly contentious bargaining process—a view Ferguson reinforced today when he called the course of discussions with the City “one of the toughest labour negotiations in Canadian history.” No details of the deal were released this morning but Ferguson called the agreement thus far a “working framework” and added that the union had made “numerous concessions” in order to get to an agreement.

via Outside Workers Reach Tentative Deal with the City | Torontoist.

Geez. I sure predicted wrong on this one. I was almost 100% sure that the city’s move to unilaterally impose terms would push Toronto toward a work stoppage. I was very surprised — the good kind of surprised — to hear that a deal had been reached yesterday morning.

The union came into these negotiations in a tough position. The 2009 strike was devastating for them in a bunch of ways. It damaged their relationship with a labour-friendly mayor, sparked questions-of-confidence amongst their membership, turned most of the public against them and contributed to the landslide electoral victory of a mayor who publicly refers to workers as “garbage.” As far as dumb decisions go, walking off the job for 40 days over a sick bank issue has to be a Hall of Fame contender.

And so the stage has always been set for this to be a negotiation where the union would have to make concessions. As Adam Vaughan told the Toronto Star’s Linda Diebel, “CUPE is remarkably, profoundly aware of the (public relations) problem they face over the 2009 strike.” And to CUPE President Mark Ferguson’s credit, the union were conciliatory from the outset, offering both a pay freeze and some latitude on the “jobs for life” thing. This willingness to make concessions contrasted with a negotiating strategy from the city that was designed to make the union look like uncompromising bullies — and it was that contrast that make a negotiated settlement look so unlikely heading into this weekend.

Any real analysis of who “won” this particular labour battle is premature until we know more about the deal that was reached, but, in the public eye, this outcome will undoubtedly stand as a victory for the mayor. Rob Ford does deserve credit for being open to a compromise solution, and sparing the city yet another work stoppage. I underestimated him on this one.

Also, selfishly: can I say how glad I am that I won’t have to write about labour issues for the next few months? Feel like I dodged a bullet.

feature — Comments Off on Labour Daze: work stoppage seems likely as city moves to force strike
03
Feb 12

Labour Daze: work stoppage seems likely as city moves to force strike

Because politics in Toronto aren’t already heated and chaotic enough, we got word today that the city is seemingly on course to head straight into a work stoppage situation with its outside worker union. The labour disruption — which could take the form of a lockout or a strike or some kind of work-to-rule thing — could start as soon as Sunday. (Updated for clarity: the union hasn’t scheduled a strike vote so they’re not going to take any immediate action this weekend. We could start to see movement on Sunday, however, depending on the terms the city imposes.)

The tenor of the negotiations between the city and the union changed quickly. It was only yesterday that things looked pretty good, as reported by the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale:

Less than 72 hours before a lockout or strike becomes legal, the leader of the union representing Toronto’s outdoor municipal workers is reporting “significant progress toward successfully concluding an agreement.”

Mark Ferguson, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416, made the optimistic assessment in a written statement Thursday afternoon.

via Toronto labour fight: As lockout date looms, CUPE reports ‘significant progress’ | Toronto Star.

But then, earlier this morning, we got word that any progress between the two sides had been torpedoed after the city let the union know they’d be unilaterally imposing new contract terms.

The Star’s David Rider:

The Mayor Rob Ford administration has moved aggressively against CUPE Local 416, tabling 11th-hour demands it says will be imposed on 6,000 city workers Sunday whether their union accepts them or not.

The threat — very unusual in the public sector and regarded as a way to get workers to accept an offer or force them to strike — pushes Toronto to the very brink of a work stoppage this weekend by outside workers.

Bruce Anderson, the city’s executive director of human resources, told reporters Friday the demands, suddenly tabled Thursday night after months of bargaining, will be unilaterally imposed at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

via Take new deal or we’ll impose it, city tells workers | Toronto Star.

The city’s threat basically amounts to this: we’re going to start messing with your jobs. Security provisions will be tossed out and benefit plans changed. The city has even threatened to stop collecting union dues via their payroll system, something which seems extraordinary petty.

The goal seems to be to provoke a strike from the union. The city — and Rob Ford, whose office has a clear hand in these negotiations — seemingly holds the belief that a labour disruption is inevitable. A negotiated settlement is out of the question. (If you believe rumours, a negotiated settlement was always out of the question.) And because a lockout imposed by the city might build public sympathy for the union, forcing a strike is the preferable solution from the city’s perspective.

David Dorey, a professor at York U, has a good run-down of some of the technical details on his blog.

What Next? 

A prolonged labour disruption raises a lot of questions. For instance: how exactly does this help Rob Ford with his mandate to improve customer service across the city? The guy was elected at least partially because of residual anger and bad-feelings stemming from the 2009 strike — and so he responds by taking the city into another one just like it?

Also, back in 2009, Ford was a big proponent of provincial back-to-work legislation as a means to end the dispute. He surely won’t advocate the same this time of around, should the union strike. Why the change of heart?

But really, presuming some kind of work stoppage takes hold next week, everything turns into a PR battle. The union will have to effectively portray themselves as victims of management that never wanted to negotiate in good faith. They’ll have to convince the public that the city always wanted a strike. The city, on the other hand, will talk about how the Ford administration has a strong mandate to rein in costs and take back control of organized labour. They’ll say that the union is being unreasonable.

Don’t kid yourself: public opinion will probably fall squarely on the side of the mayor. In fact, this is undoubtedly a chance for Ford to rebuild some of the popularity he squandered over the last year. There is a strong unshakeable belief amongst many Toronto residents that public sector workers are unfairly overpaid for the work they do.

The union isn’t starting from a strong position. They’ve got some ground to make up.

The Bigger Picture

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I’ve got to wonder if any of this will prove to be worth it. These labour negotiation wheels were set in motion primarily because the mayor wants to contract out a number of city services to the private sector, and that can’t be done with the job security provisions under the current collective agreement.

But is going to all this trouble to chase those contracting-out opportunities even worth it? Are there really enough money-saving opportunities that a prolonged and bitter labour dispute is justified? Wouldn’t it better to pursue a long-term approach, balancing the current collective agreement with contracting-out opportunities that can actually demonstrate value and customer service?

Does it really make sense to let garbage pile up on our streets for months without knowing the answers to these questions?

feature — Comments Off on Ignoring Giorgio: Pay no attention to the magician’s assistant
16
Aug 11

Ignoring Giorgio: Pay no attention to the magician’s assistant

It’s clear at this point that Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti’s primary role is to serve as lovely assistant to the magicians in the mayor’s office. He’s the one waving his arms provocatively and strutting across the stage while our magical mayor takes a hacksaw to an audience member, cutting her in half. We get so caught up looking at Giorgio that we don’t notice that the magic is, well, a trick, and that what we think is being performed in front of us is all part of a grand illusion.

The feet dangling out the end of the box belong to someone else — it’s so obvious that the truth almost screams at us — but we don’t care, because there’s Giorgio ranting about communists, filming lesbians and doing council research at strip clubs. And we can’t look away.

It’s hard to know how self-aware Mammoliti really is. The Toronto Star, in an A-level feature by reporter Daniel Dale, made it clear that — at least to some degree — the councillor knows what he’s doing. “There’s always a strategy. Anybody who thinks I just blurt things out, they’re dreaming in technicolour,” said the councillor. “I think about everything I say.”

And, ignoring the spectral appearance of the lady-that-doth-protest-too-much, let’s grant him that. Let’s work under the assumption that Giorgio Mammoliti is in on the joke. This creates a challenging situation for those of us who like to comment on City Hall matters, because by focusing too much on Giorgio-tinged antics we could become unwitting suckers, and we hate being being suckers. It also puts us in a situation where we can’t ever be sure if we’re hearing actual policy, blessed by the mayor’s office, or slightly-deranged ramblings. This would be less of a problem if Mammoliti was some fringe councillor with no responsibilities, but the guy is deep within the mayor’s inner circle and currently overseeing task forces on everything from childcare to homelessness.

It’s enough to make your head spin. So let’s simplify. Let’s stick to the facts. Giorgio Mammoliti, last week, created a Facebook group dubbed “Save the City…Support the Ford Administration.” A whole bunch of things happened rather quickly after the group’s creation, but ultimately we ended at a point where Mammoliti had dubbed all critics of the mayor as communists. This culminated with a hit on Josh Matlow’s NewsTalk 1010 show, where Mammoliti and the leader of the Ontario Communist Party debated municipal issues. I should pause to note here that none of this is hyperbole or comic exaggeration.

The communist story dominated the week, with the Facebook group, abandoned by the councillor two days after he started it, falling into anarchy. In my opinion, this exchange, where Mammoliti responds earnestly to a hilarious thread regarding the Emery Village flagpole, was the best thing to come out of it. Aside from that, the social networking group is an interesting phenomenon if only for the glimpses it gives us into the minds of some (fringe?) members of Ford Nation.

In sum: They believe there are too many library branches. They have a bitter attitude toward unions and believe they must be punished. They’re enamoured with the idea that bike licensing could be a solid revenue generator and would improve behaviour. They’re relatively convinced that a significant percentage of poverty and homelessness is due to laziness or entitlement. And, underlying it all, there’s a sense that government — even a government like this one, which is essentially controlled by someone they support — is inherently incompetent and undeserving of the tax money it receives.

That is, I suppose, the flip side of the coin represented by the voices I’ve been spotlighting through the Toronto Spoke feature. Some of these views represent a fringe element, of course, but to dismiss them outright would be too akin to the response we’ve seen from the mayor and other councillors when asked about the marathon executive meeting. These are the arguments that progressives need to keep in mind as they move forward in this ongoing battle for hearts-and-minds. This is the thing to focus on.

In other words: keep your eye on the contents of the box and the guy with the saw. Ignore the assistant, the choreography and the flashing lights. Because this ain’t magic — it’s something else entirely.

feature — Comments Off on Ford enjoys a 60% approval rating, says terribly misleading poll
02
Mar 11

Ford enjoys a 60% approval rating, says terribly misleading poll

Kelly Grant with the Globe & Mail:

Rob Ford enjoys a 60-per-cent approval rating, according to the first public poll released since he took office Dec. 1.

However, Toronto-based Forum Research, Inc. found that urban and suburban Torontonians remain deeply divided about Mr. Ford: His approval rating was highest in Scarborough (71 per cent) and North York (65 per cent) and lowest in the old cities of Toronto and East York (46 per cent.)

“That puts him higher than his vote, so somehow he’s got the approval of some of his opponents’ supporters, which I think is quite a task, especially given how polarizing the election was,” said Lorne Bozinoff, the president of Forum Research. “My gut feel is that’s a good rating.”

via Rob Ford more popular now than at election – The Globe and Mail.

Always fun to see pollsters going by their “gut feel.”

Grant points out that while a 60% approval rating isn’t bad by any means, David Miller’s approval rating was 82% six months into his first term. Quick googling reveals that Miller’s approval ratings stayed very high until the garbage strike in 2009. In 2005, well into his first term, Miller sat at 69%.

More troubling is the nature of the poll questions. Forum Research asked respondents 11 questions about various policies. Of those, several of the questions are incredibly misleading, generally skewed toward pushing support for the mayor’s initiatives.

Here’s a quick breakdown, I’m assuming all questions began with “Do you agree with…” or “Do you support…” but that’s been omitted in the report.

  • “The privatization of garbage collection for parts of the city” – A fine question. Notable that only 54% of people agree with this. I’d have pegged popular support at a higher level.
  • “The mandatory 5 cent plastic shopping bag fee” – Another appropriate question. It’s hilarious how much older people hate this fee.
  • “Declaring the TTC an essential service that would ban strikes and lockouts” – I don’t have a huge problem with this question, but I’d guess that rephrasing it as “Declaring the TTC an essential service, increasing labour costs related to transit” would see very different results.
  • “Tearing down the eastern end of the Gardiner expressway” – Why even ask this? Has it come up at all? Was there more context given? A weird question.
  • “Providing jobs for life for city employees” – This is where these questions go off the rails completely. They might as well have phrased as this “Do you support fatcat union members?”
  • “Using private sector financing to pay for the Sheppard subway so it can be built sooner” – What the hell is this one? No one is proposing that private sector funds will get transit built on Sheppard faster than originally planned. The Sheppard East LRT would have been open in less than three years.
  • “Spending $3 million to hire an outside consultant to look at ways to make the City more efficient?” – If there’s bad news for Ford in this poll, it’s this question. Only 38% of people support the move to hire an outside consultant. A fair question. (Interesting, too, that the $3 million dollars only become public knowledge at council on Thursday, February 24  – this poll went into the wild on Friday, February 25.)
  • “Relaxing liquor regulations so that you can walk around with a drink at licensed events instead of having to stay in a beer tent?” – This is a provincial issue that doesn’t have anything to do with the City’s government.
  • “Licensing bicyclists so that traffic laws can be enforced with them?” – Oh, screw off. I love the implication that traffic laws can’t be enforced with cyclists currently because of the lack of some kind of licensing program. Cyclists already are subject to the rules of the road. A municipal licensing program wouldn’t do anything to change that and would cost a ton of money.
  • “In order to improve public transit, do you think more below ground subways or more above ground light rail streetcars should be built?” – No one is proposing more streetcar lines as Toronto knows them. A ridiculous question in the sense that even diehard Transit City supporters would probably be forced to answer for below ground subways. In an ideal world we’d have below ground subways everywhere.
  • “Should the City build more City owned social housing units or should the City provide rent subsidies so those needing social housing can rent privately owned units instead?” – Not as egregious as some of the other questions but, again, there’s a clear skew here. The subtext is “Should the city keep spending YOUR TAX DOLLARS on public housing or should we just let the awesome private sector deal with it?” As I noted yesterday, Section Eight housing subsidies exist across the United States and still lead to the same issues we see with our public housing system — slumlords eagerly accept the subsidies while “nicer” market rental buildings refuse them.

In summary, this poll reveals primarily that Ford is currently a semi-popular mayor and little else. Anyone who can read some of the questions contained within this poll and feel like they’re an accurate representation of anything is kidding themselves.