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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:20 am Post subject: Toronto on strike |
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With the city strike entering day two, tempers and temperatures were climbing today as parents, strikers, homeowners and businesses juggle the escalating effects of a walkout by 30,000 workers.
At the Bermondsey transfer station near Eglinton Ave. E. and Victoria Park Ave., picketer Ed Barber spoke out about the leaders in the two locals of the Canadian Union of Public Workers that took their members off the job at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
"The union doesn't have any concrete leadership or organization," said Barber, who works for the Toronto water department. "This is stupid. We should be at work. There's a recession. Why don't people understand that."
About 130 strikers marched outside the Bermondsey station. Car seats and broken sofas were piled in with black and blue plastic bags and lawn waste paper bags, all stacked nearly a metre and a half high and almost blocking the road.
The pickets were letting people through, unlike yesterday when a roadblock triggered shouting and arguments.
Earlier, the city had said double-bagged residential waste would be accepted free at seven transfer stations. Commercial waste would be subject to a $100 per tonne tip fee. But by 2 p.m. yesterday, no one was being allowed through to drop off residential or commercial waste, on foot or in vehicles.
"Take the garbage to your city councillor's office," a picket yelled at a driver who was refused entry.
This morning, a couple from downtown Toronto pulled up at Bermondsey with 15 black bags stuffed with garbage in their SUV.
"We are homeowners and have five apartments, said the woman who refused to give her name. "The only way out is privatization but I don't see that happening while Miller is around."
Martel Pat, who came from Danforth and Pape, had to wait 20 minutes to get rid of a single bag. "This is only the beginning," he said. "It's going to be much worse after a week."
Said Darlene Cooke from Scarborough: "I respect them and I'm trying to understand what they are doing."
The city plans a 2:30 p.m. update on contingency plans today.
The strike has shut down city-operated daycare centres, garbage collection for single family homes in all areas except Etobicoke, recreation centres, city ferries and sports on city fields and meetings of city council.
"The city is working with the conciliator and the unions," said city spokesman Kevin Sack. "Talks are ongoing. Nothing has changed."
A lingering strike would spell disaster for many of the 8,100 independent and chain restaurants, bars and caterers in the city, said Stephanie Jones, Ontario vice-president of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.
Small restaurants and cafes are already being hammered by the second-lowest profit margins in the country � at 2.5 per cent � because of labour costs, food costs and the fallout from 9/11, she said. Having to spent more time and money on private collection could send them under.
While most restaurants in the city already have private collection, because the city can't pick up often enough, the little independents, particularly in neighbourhoods where they're bookended by greengrocers, retainers and convenience stores, will have to work out their own system.
In Windsor, where a garbage strike is now into its ninth week, jockeying for garbage space in alleys has turned ugly time and again, she said.
"We want to make sure that doesn't (happen here)," said Jones. "Here, we have 10 times the number of restaurants."
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs with offers to pick up the slack of closed summer camps are joining daycare offers on Craigslist. About a half-dozen posted today proposing alternates to the city camps scheduled to start next week. |
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/655198
This strike is very poorly timed.
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This may be the most unpopular strike in recent memory: Unionists fighting to keep their annual 18 bankable sick days walked off the job today, leaving garbage uncollected as the first heat wave of summer begins.
To understand what the strikers were thinking, with an entire recession-weary city seemingly angry at them, I went to Etobicoke Civic Centre and spoke to Shelley Suffield, a dental assistant with Dental Services, Toronto Public Health. She wore a sandwich board sign reading, �We deserve a fair contract. Local 79. Bargain with honesty.�
Ms. Suffield has worked for the city 26 years. Her office in the civic centre fixes the teeth of low-income residents. She also screens childrens� teeth at city elementary schools, and cleans dentures at city long-term care homes such as Westburn Manor, which is across from her office.
�Council had no problem voting themselves a raise, so we�re just asking for fair treatment,� she said. �None of us want to be here. But if we can�t get a fair deal, our only option is to withdraw our labour. We want to hold on to what we have.�
Mayor David Miller is suggesting the city must draw the line somewhere, as its costs go up. The problem is, he has set a bad example.
�Over the last six monthz, we passed a budget with the biggest spending increase in history,� notes Councillor Karen Stintz (Eglinton-Lawrence), who swung by to hear Joe Pennachetti, the city manager, speak to reporters at Metro Hall. �We hired 1,300 new people, and councillors took a raise. At no point in the last six months did they communicate that the city was in a difficult financial position.�
She questioned the silence of Mr. Miller. �I think he should have been very public last week and this week,� she said.
Mr. Miller had a very bad day Monday. Residents are mad about the strike, and the union rank and file, who have always supported him, are now turning on him too.
�Mel Lastman was a son of a bitch,� said one Etobicoke striker, a welfare caseworker for the past 31 years. �But we all think so very much of David Miller. I was very proud to have him as a mayor. But if he wants my vote next time around, he needs to whip his negotiators into shape.�
Another woman, who works in a city daycare in the Jane-Finch area, was sitting in a folding chair in the shade on the carefully trimmed lawn, with a water bottle in the cup-holder. Her sign read, �CUPE on the Front Line. Why are we paying for the city�s financial mistakes?�
She would not give a name. �They�ve settled with all the other unions. TTC, police, Toronto Housing, Fire, with no concessions and a 3% raise. And they have all kinds of stuff they want to take away from us.�
I asked her whether she was missing the kids at her daycare.
�No,� she said. �It�s a rest.�
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http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/06/22/toronto-on-strike-a-bad-day-for-city-unions-a-bad-day-for-david-miller.aspx
Public sector unions are often unable to hide their selfish belligerence. Many thousands in TO are recently unemployed. |
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gangwonbound
Joined: 27 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:29 am Post subject: |
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I voted for the stike...
It is timed this way so that it will have maxium effect on the city...
The city gave the TTC, Police, Fire service and other organisations everything they demanded for when it came to having a new agreement. They even gave them a 3% raise.
The city councillors voted to give themselves a raise and also hired 1300 more city workers...Then they turn around and say they have no money and that the in-door and out-door workers have to give even though they just took...
All we ask is to be treated fairly and we are not...The city knew this was coming and they did nothing to try and sort out the effects of people going on Strike.
The city of Toronto is as usual screwing people around while making sure they get benefits. |
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enns
Joined: 02 May 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:16 am Post subject: |
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Unions 'fairness' a farce
By PETER WORTHINGTON
One thing the present garbage and municipal strike proves is the only people who can afford to strike during a recession are those in unions on the public payroll.
At a time when welfare rolls are up, the car industry is in the process of collapsing, and the private sector is cutting back on jobs, the ones who flourish best are those who feed off the taxpayer.
Politicians are worse than public service unions when it comes to venality, and Toronto's councillors had no trouble giving themselves a 2.42% wage while arguing the city can't afford union pay raises.
DECENT BEHAVIOUR
Without a political example of decent behaviour, why should anyone expect unions to behave better than the people we elect? The "we're all right, Jack," syndrome is alive and well in Toronto.
Perhaps the most outrageous benefit the garbage workers (and others) get is annual sick leave of 18 days a year, accumulative for up to six months pay if you don't get sick.
Even if there wasn't a recession, the bankable sick days scam should end. It's degrading and insulting and should offend honest workers. Some insist the first day of sickness should be a no-pay day, to discourage those who "just happen" to get sick the day before or the day after a long weekend. That assumes workers are cheating their employers.
There are some 24,000 unionized municipal workers now on strike. These are usually well-paying jobs that no end of applicants would relish in a recession, were they available.
The strike, which offends every Torontonian, could be a boon to Mayor David Miller, if he had guts. He's been a union facilitator more than a representative of the people, but if he refuses to surrender to garbage demands, he'll likely gain votes in 2010 that he'd otherwise never see for being a union patsy.
Of course what the mayor should do is what Etobicoke did when Doug Holyday was its mayor in 1995, and contracted out garbage collecting and ended the 18-day accumulative sick-day ripoff.
GARBAGE RANSOM
Never mind that circumstances were different then. Holyday could see the future and planned accordingly. He had the courage to act. Thus Etobicoke is not being held to garbage ransom today.
If he had a spine, Mayor Miller would implement something similar for Toronto -- or we should elect a mayor who will work for the people.
For more than 10 weeks now, there's been a garbage strike underway in Windsor.
One of the oddities of municipal workers not tending parks in Windsor, is citizens have begun taking their own lawn mowers to city parks to trim the grass -- and are being threatened by thugs who think this infringes on the rights of striking union members.
Will that be Toronto if this strike continues?
As well, 57 daycare centres are now closed, affecting some 2,000 kids and their parent(s).
The union bosses stress the word "fairness" in their negotiations.
Is it "fair" that they should demand more when so many thousands of workers in Toronto and the province are trying to survive with less?
Is it "fair" they get benefits few other workers get?
This is NDP-thinking and a betrayal of their ally, Mayor Miller, but there's nothing new in that.
It's what was done to Bob Rae when he was the NDP premier of Ontario and the unions did his government in with extortionist policies.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/peter_worthington/2009/06/24/9907001-sun.html |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/this-country/in-feudal-age-of-pensions-renaissance-must-come/article1194145/
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In feudal age of pensions, renaissance must come
He calls it our �Modern Feudal System.�
A system where a few have a lot and the majority have � or will have � very little indeed.
The difference-maker in our futures, says Bill Tufts, is going to be our pension plans. Public or private. Gold-plated pensions versus pensions that might not even hold a coat of yellow paint.
�Church and King have been replaced by Government and Big Business,� says the Hamilton-based pension specialist with WB Benefit Solutions. �In the feudal age, the church and nobility always wrestled for the purse of those trapped in the caste system. But the poor serf still paid with everything he grew or could make.�
On his blog and in articles and talks, Tufts has been arguing that the average public servant in Canada will end up with a pension valued at close to $1-million � while the average taxpayer is looking at retirement with less than $150,000 in RRSPs or a small company pension.
The world financial meltdown, he says, has created a situation in which private-sector pensions are under siege � some to the point of vanishing � while public plans are not only protected but, in certain cases, will be topped up in the event of a shortfall by taxpayers who will never collect such a pension themselves.
�People are resentful,� he says.
He also says people are becoming increasingly aware of the situation. The North American media have called it �pension envy,� while the British press has warned about a �pension apartheid� in which retirement lifestyle will be decided largely on whether or not the retiree collects a healthy, protected and often indexed public pension or a squeezed and potentially fragile private one.
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These unions should really think about their behaviour, given the extreme benefits given to public sector workers. |
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gangwonbound
Joined: 27 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| If you have to deal with teash for a good 25yrs old our life I say you should be allowed to have a good pension. If you just sit on your ass all day in an office you don't deserve it |
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