José Latour

Hav­ing wasted forty-four years of my life under Com­mu­nism, where only the party-controlled Union is allowed, col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is nonex­is­tent, and attempt­ing to found an inde­pen­dent Union gets peo­ple sent to prison, since my arrival in Canada I read and watch the news about strikes with great inter­est and cer­tain respect.

I don’t know enough about the demands made by two locals of pub­lic work­ers before Toronto’s recent strike, or the City’s coun­ter­ar­gu­ments, to take sides. But from the start I’ve been ask­ing myself “Why now?”

The lead­ers of locals 416 and 79 are no fools. They were aware that the strike would be unpop­u­lar. Two huge errors made it more so: pre­vent­ing plain folks from dis­pos­ing of their garbage at tem­po­rary dump­sites, and that some mem­bers ver­bally abused peo­ple. Infu­ri­at­ing those who pay their salaries was a mis­take. They will suf­fer the consequences.

But return­ing to the rea­sons for the strike, I assume that the lead­ers were aware that:

- In July 800,000 Cana­di­ans were col­lect­ing employ­ment insur­ance and that Ontario has lost 234,000 posi­tions since the labour mar­ket peaked in Octo­ber 2008.

- At pri­vate com­pa­nies, garbage col­lec­tors and other employ­ees are paid less than their membership.

- The City’s sources of income, taxes for the most part, have shrunk.

This envi­ron­ment should have given pause to the locals’ lead­ers and affil­i­ates who hold well-paying jobs, but they went ahead any­way. Why?

I can only guess, but these peo­ple read the news, walk the streets, and make value judg­ments, so maybe they also weighed that:

- Some city and provin­cial insti­tu­tions have prof­li­gate spend­ing habits. Just as eHealth squan­dered tax­pay­ers’ money, it is pos­si­ble that other audits might bring to light com­pa­ra­ble waste­ful­ness cur­rently tak­ing place in other gov­ern­ment bodies.

- A num­ber of City coun­cil­lors are reluc­tant to forgo salary increases.

- Accord­ing to Pub­lic Sec­tor Salary Dis­clo­sure reports, the salaries of Toronto’s man­agers, super­vi­sors, coor­di­na­tors, tech­ni­cal advi­sors, etc., have increased over the last four years.

And last but not least, unions exist to advance the inter­ests of their mem­bers. The lead­ers of locals 416 and 79 might have asked their affil­i­ates if they should tighten their belts while oth­ers are loos­en­ing theirs and their response was a big no. If my guess is cor­rect, expect fur­ther strikes by pub­lic employees.

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