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Gurney: Well, JG, that depends a lot on whether the administration is bluffing. As Chris and I have both said, there’s still the issue of “jobs for life.” If the City chooses to push ahead with a hard-line approach, effectively dismissing the offer of the wage freeze as a good start but *only* a start, then it’s a battle. I agree with Chris that a lot of people in the private sector may still be open to the administration’s argument, despite CUPE’s (admittedly adroit) move.

Selley: The opposition to unions may well be ideological in the Mayor’s office, and among some of his supporters. But more so I think it’s simply visceral. It’s no different than the Occupy movement, really, only with the roles reversed: Sure, there’s an intellectual case to be made for redistributing wealth or freer labour markets, but there is also a sense that it simply isn’t fair for one segment of society to have life so easy at the expense of the rest. I’ve said for years that the public-sector unions need to completely start over with their PR — to explain to the people who pay their salaries why it’s good for everyone that they have comparatively lavish perks and basically can’t get fired. A short-term wage freeze is unlikely to help them in the long run, and I hope it doesn’t end up delaying the bigger changes that need to occur.

Goldsbie: Recasting working people as elites was one of the great successes of neoliberalism. It could not have been easy work to turn the concept of “fairness” on its head so that it signifies a race to the bottom. But that’s pretty much what this is all about: the administration wants to remove the collective agreements’ “Employment Security and Redeployment” provisions so that they can more easily lay off their employees in favour of cheaper workers employed by third-party contractors. I don’t doubt for a moment that many people who are outraged by the job security of public workers would be equally incensed if they were laid off by their own long-time employers in favour of whatever happens to be the cheapest alternative. I’m skeptical that the average laid-off worker grudgingly admires their former employer for having found a new way to maximize profits. “Harsh” and “indifferent” are not qualities that we tend to seek in government.