2009_City_of_Toronto_inside_and_outside_workers

City of Toronto workers on strike.

The 2009 City of Toronto inside and outside workers strike (also known as the 2009 Toronto strike) was a legal strike action that was undertaken by the Toronto Civic Employees Union, a subsidiary of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the city of Toronto.

It involved approximately 24,000 city employees. ^[1]

1 Background
2 Issues
3 Services Affected
- 3.1 Garbage Collection
4 Final Resolution
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Background

Trash seen being put into the plastic covering sealed trash bins on June 22.

On June 22 at midnight Toronto municipal workers belonging to 2 separate unions (CUPE Local 416 - representing the outside workers, and CUPE Local 79 - representing the inside workers) went on strike following six months negotiating with the municipality over contract renewal.^[2]

Issues

The union said that the main issue for the strike was requests, from the city, for concessions from the union in the new contract. ^[2]

According to the CBC, the main issues were regard changes to job security, seniority and the banking of sick days. ^[3] The previous contract allowed some^{[citation needed]} union members to bank unused sick days and cash them out upon retirement. The city proposed contract was to disallow the practise.

CUPE Local 79 President, Ann Dembinski was quoted as saying "This is about getting a fair deal similar to what everyone else got. Everyone else was able to negotiate a collective agreement without huge takeaways. These are huge concessions. No other City of Toronto workforce has had to negotiate any concessions in order to get a collective agreement." ^[3]

Services Affected

A sign points the way to the drop-off site at Moss Park

Temporary trash site at Christie Pits Park

Union members from Local 416 and Local 79 work in various different departments within the city and the work stoppage affected many services including^[4]:

Garbage Collection - from single detached dwellings, low-rise residential dwellings and some small commercial businesses. (Exception: Former City of Etobicoke which contracted out services before amalgamation).
Parks and Recreation - including City run pools and Recreation Facilities, grass cutting in parks, summer programmes. Toronto Island ferry services halted for visitors and residents
City run daycare facilities.
Municipal Licensing - including building permits, signage permits, taxi cab licenses and burlesque licenses. Marriage licenses are not affected.
Public Heath - including regular health inspections of restaurants, city beaches, city run clinics and dental offices
Toronto EMS - Ambulance Service running at 75% capacity with priority calls unaffected.
Water Supply/Water Treatment
Animal Services

Garbage Collection

The cessation of garbage collection was one of the more noticeable effects of the labour disruption. Four days into the strike the city announced 19 temporary garbage drop off locations for residential waste. This decision proved controversial in neighbourhoods with the sites as residents expressed concerned about pesticide and rodenticide spraying and odour and leaching caused by the piles of garbage^[5]. Junk removal entrepreneurs took the opportunity to increase their customer base, specifically because plenty of residents were left without options to deal with their trash^[6].

Final Resolution

On July 27th, after extensions to a union-imposed midnight deadline to reach an agreement, CUPE local 416 President Mark Ferguson announced that the union had "the basis for a deal" with the City of Toronto. Ferguson exhorted the city to turn its attention to resolving outstanding issues with the city's inside workers represented by 416's sister local, local 79.^[7]^[8]

The final vote by the council on the agreement put forward by the mayor resulted in 21 "yes" votes, 18 "no" votes, and 6 absences.^[9]