03) LIBRARY WORKERS STRIKE AS TORONTO TALKS CONTINUE
By Liz Rowley
About 2,300 Toronto Public Library (TPL) workers were still on strike as People's Voice went to press. At the same time, the negotiating committee for 23,000 inside workers, members of CUPE Local 79, were taking the City's final offer to a membership vote. It's the first time ever Local 79 negotiators have declined to make a recommendation, which indicates the viciousness of the employer in this round of bargaining.
According to sources, the deal is similar to the one offered in February to the outside workers, members of CUPE 416, which included significant concessions on job security as well as lump sum payments which reduced actual wage increases in two of the contract's four years.
Prior to the city's final offer made March 26, talks had moved into overtime, with the union publicly stating its determination to stay at the bargaining table and hammer out an agreement. The union would only strike, they said, if the City moved to unilaterally impose new terms and conditions of employment. If the final offer is rejected by the membership on March 28, 23,000 inside workers will join already striking librarians on the picket lines.
Imposing new terms and conditions was exactly what the City did to library workers, members of CUPE Local 4948, after the clock ran out on the old agreement. The city's actions were a clear message that the employer wanted to force the workers out. The City wanted to create a crisis a la Mike Harris, to stoke the fires of anger and resentment against striking workers.
Library workers had no choice but to hit the bricks March 18th, after the city unilaterally imposed new terms and conditions - exactly those that the Ford administration wanted in the new collective agreement.
As in the earlier negotiations with the city's outside workers, the key issue is job security. More than half of all city workers are part‑timers, who have no benefits, low wages, and less than 24 hours of work per week without any job security. Many have worked part‑time for years, with all of the experience and qualifications of full‑time workers. Many take on other part‑time jobs just to make ends meet.
The union has tried to achieve secure full‑time jobs at the same rates of pay and with the benefits provided to full‑time workers, but never made the fight to get it. Now the Ford administration is fighting to get rid of these achievements won over decades for full‑time workers. Attacking job security clauses as "jobs for life" for "fat cat" workers, the employer aims to decapitate opposition while slashing municipal jobs and services.
This year the City has not only rejected fairness for part-timers, it has eliminated workers through the 2012 budget cuts, and aims to eliminate hundreds more. The goal is to contract out and privatize Toronto's city services and public sector workforce.
The Ford administration has ties to a corporation which administers public library systems in the US, and which is waiting in the wings to take over Toronto's library system ‑ the biggest in Canada.
But the union, and the vast network of friends and supporters of the TPL, have brought their well‑organized opposition to the assault on the library system, which to many epitomizes mass public education, culture, freedom and democracy.
The Writers' Union of Canada, representing 2,000 writers including Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Susan Swan, Writers' Union Chair Greg Hollingshead and others, have vocally opposed the attack since the Mayor and his brother Doug said they would close library branches in a heartbeat. The Mayor's plan to eliminate job security will clear the way to closures, and to contracting out.
Indeed the right‑wing majority on Council want to blow up and cut down programs and services built up by Toronto ratepayers and tenants over generations. If they succeed in Toronto, they'll be in your town next.
In January and February, the city's outside workers, members of CUPE Local 416, faced the same demands for deep concessions that other city workers and local unions are now fighting. The leadership of Local 416 recommended the contract, which was grudgingly supported by its members. But half declined to vote, and the final vote on the deal was never revealed.
The contract saw job security provisions removed for workers with less than 15 years of seniority, opening the way for more layoffs and next year's contracting out of garbage collection in the east end of the city. The four-year agreement also replaced some wage increases with lump sum payments, ensuring those parts of the basic wage package will have to be fought for all over again.
Local 79's inside workers voted to give their negotiating committee a strike mandate of 85%. If the City unilaterally alters the terms and conditions of work, they may be forced to join the library workers, who have strong public support.
Ford has already made numerous false steps in his dealings with labour, and with City Council's majority of right‑wing members who still don't like to be ordered around or attacked for daring to disagree. Recent defeats on the transit file have exposed the cracks in the right‑wing camp, and the weakness of the Mayor and his "cabinet" in the face of an angry public.
There is every reason to believe that public opinion will oppose the Mayor's agenda. The union's announcement that it will stay at the bargaining table until an agreement is reached, walking out only if the city imposes new terms and conditions, is a recipe for public support. Now the job for progressives is to organize that support and to force the city to negotiate a fair collective agreement for city workers ‑ in the libraries, and throughout the city.
(The above article is from the April 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)