In early 2016, the City of Toronto went up against three unions — CUPE Local 416 (representing outside workers), CUPE Local 79 (representing inside workers) and CUPE Local 4948 (representing library workers).

From the city’s perspective, it was a good year. By the end of an accelerated negotiation process, Toronto’s approximately 26,000 inside and outside workers surrendered job security and benefits and accepted wage increases below the rate of inflation over a four-year deal. Library workers gained some protection for precarious employees and modest wage increases in their own four-year deal. All was achieved without a strike or a lockout.

Each of those contracts expires at the end of 2019 — and city and union negotiators will be heading back to the bargaining table to hammer out a new deal. That begs the question: what exactly will that deal look like? And how will the parties get there?

On Friday, Toronto’s labour relations committee met for the first time this term to start to answer that question. The committee of councillors, chaired by Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong, is responsible for overseeing the city’s negotiating team and setting both the terms of the city’s offer and the strategy for getting there.

Minnan-Wong said in an interview that details of the committee’s deliberations will remain secret.

“As you are well aware the cone of silence stays on this for a very long time,” he said.

But with that said, the city’s strategy of accelerating negotiations — first deployed under former mayor Rob Ford in 2012 — will almost certainly continue.

Ford’s government adopted the unusual strategy of cutting back-and-forth negotiations short very early — just after the previous contract expired, in the depths of winter, by requesting a so-called “no board” report from the Ministry of Labour that set a schedule for a legal strike or lockout.

In previous years, the city negotiators had allowed negotiations to continue through the spring — so that by the time a countdown to a strike deadline began, the summer months were looming.

And that gave the unions a strategic advantage that they exploited in 2009, when negotiations with former mayor David Miller’s government broke down and Torontonians were faced with a 40-day municipal workers strike in which garbage literally piled up in city parks, and other city services came to a standstill.

“Under David Miller, I think that their strategy was to put the city in a great deal of risk because they left the negotiations very late,” he said. “I think it’s within the city’s best interests to try and get negotiations done as early as possible and to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.”

Doug Holyday, who was Ford’s deputy mayor in 2012 and oversaw negotiations then, remains a strong proponent of the aggressive management negotiating style — and argued in an interview that the city should have been using it from the beginning.

“Staff were well aware that if you were to follow the union’s timetable and wait until the good weather was coming — it was the most advantageous time for the union to strike because they could cause you the most damage,” Holyday said.

Holyday has been away from city hall since 2013, when he ran in an Etobicoke-Lakeshore byelection as a member of the Progressive Conservative party. Looking at the 2019 negotiations, he guessed that the city might want to push for greater control of absenteeism and as affordable a compensation package as possible. But he said that, politically, the one thing Mayor John Tory could not afford would be a strike.

“If there was a strike it could have a definite effect on John Tory’s ability to get re-elected,” said Holyday, who noted that even in the winter, residents in the eastern part of the city would surely take note that their garbage would not be collected, but in the west — where the city has contracted out garbage — it would be.

“They would know he left them high and dry,” said Holyday, a longtime supporter of contracting out garbage collection to the private sector.

He acknowledged that negotiating a contract that was generous to the city’s unions might not be a problem for voters, but may well be for Doug Ford’s provincial government.

“If the conservative government thought that Toronto is throwing money down a deep dark hole, they’re going to be reluctant to pour any more in,” Holyday said.

Leaders from CUPE 416 and the library workers unions did not respond to interview requests. CUPE Local 79 president Dave Mitchell said the inside workers’ union has been preparing for negotiations since he took over as president in late 2018.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“We know exactly where we’re going. We’re ready to go and we’ve petitioned our membership with a number of questionnaires,” he said. We’ve set up contingencies on how to deal with every scenario. We’re ready to go and are excited.”

Mitchell acknowledged that the union locals are prepared for another round of tough, accelerated bargaining — and are co-ordinating among themselves to deal with this.

“The no-board is just another vehicle that is able to be used by both parties at any time they think necessary,” he said. “I am always a little surprised when I see it early in negotiations ... but it doesn’t change what our goals are, and our goals are just to be fair and open and to try to get something we can both agree on.”

David Nickle is a reporter and columnist for Metroland Media Toronto, who specializes in municipal politics. He is also an author of speculative fiction. His most recent book is VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination. Email: dnickle@toronto.com

Read more about: