Strike enters week 2 with sites 20% full

High Park, Cummer Park, Trinity Bellwoods and virtually every other Toronto park could turn into garbage drop-offs if a week-old strike by civic workers drags on indefinitely, according to a list of possible temporary trash collection points obtained yesterday by Global TV.

Mayor David Miller and Geoff Rathbone, Toronto’s general manager of solid waste, denied that the city has any immediate plans to expand the number of locations for residents and businesses to drop off their refuse.

But a seven-page City of Toronto document identifies the 19 “primary” sites in use, such as Sunnyside Park and Christie Pits, a dozen “secondary” points, such as Dufferin Grove and Earl Bales Park, and more than 150 “tertiary” dump sites including several in High Park, Glenn Stewart Park, Marie Curtis Park and Withrow Park.

Mr. Rathbone said the 19 temporary dumps that have been open since late last week are only 10% to 20% full.

“Certainly things are working well at the 19 sites, and we have no immediate plans to change that,” he said. “At this point in time we are meeting the needs of our residents. We’ll continue to evaluate the situation on a daily basis and evaluate other potential sites on the list as are necessary.”

The city has already altered its position on trash in parks once since the labour dispute began eight days ago.

The morning after 24,000 indoor and outdoor workers, including garbage crews, walked off the job, the Mayor criticized residents who were leaving trash bags in Toronto’s leafy green spaces. A few days later, city manager Joe Pennachetti announced several parks would host trash depots.

The list of possible waste collection sites identifies the capacity of trash that each can hold.

The Mayor said the city reviewed more than 200 sites months ago during its contingency planning. “The list you have is the list of the sites that were reviewed months ago and as you can see the top part of the list is the ones that we’re using,” he said.

The copy of the list is dated June 1, just a few weeks before the strike began.

Meanwhile Mr. Pennachetti said yesterday the city will place a supervisor in a lime green T-shirt emblazoned with the Toronto logo and the words “customer service” at each of the seven transfer stations and 19 trash collection points currently open. The supervisors will help advise residents what kind of garbage they can drop off and navigate some picket lines that have sprung up.

“There will be customer service, city of Toronto employees now to ensure that you know exactly what can be dropped off, what can’t be dropped off,” Mr. Pennachetti said. “These staff will help the process move along faster.”

Both the city and its unions refuse to budge from their positions on changes to sick-day banking, which could potentially mean that Toronto could go without garbage collection for the long haul.

About 40,000 Toronto households — except for those living in apartment buildings, condos or Etobicoke where garbage is contracted out — have now gone a week without waste collection.

The city has cancelled the green bin organic program for the duration of the strike, asking residents to compost it in their yards or mix it in with the rest of their double-bagged trash and bring it to a drop-off point.

“Many residents are actually freezing the material awaiting the end of the strike and will in fact put it in the green bin at that point,” Mr. Rathbone suggested.

Torontonians are also being asked to stockpile and store their blue bin recycling until the strike is over. No back-up plans have been made for residents to dispose of their recycling if the labour stoppage drags on, despite space being at a premium for many urban dwellers.

“The contingency plan is to store at home and we will collect them at the end,” he said. “We recognize that their blue bins may soon be full. We would ask that they then use clear plastic bags, fill them with recyclables and we will collect all recyclable materials at the end of the strike.”

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It seems to happen every time there’s a strike – tension builds between members of the public fed up with the disruptions and the unions manning the picket lines. It appears to have boiled over again on Tuesday, with a true he said-they said dispute, after union reps allege a frustrated motorist deliberately tried to hit a picketer with his car.

It took place at the entrance to the Toronto City Hall underground parking lot, as CUPE members circled the scene, delaying motorists who were seeking access for about five minutes.

According to the union, a man pulled around a stopped vehicle and tried to force his way through the temporary roadblock.

Police received the call about an assault at the location around 1:40pm and are still trying to sort out what happened next.

“I saw the driver coming towards our line and … he started to approach me with a fair bit of velocity, like he intended to plow through us,” alleges witness and striker Twila Plant. “So people jumped out of the way … and Mike [the alleged victim] stepped in to tell him to stop again and he’s like, “No!” and just ran into him.”

The man in the car (top left) adamantly denies the accusation, telling CityNews “nothing happened.” He calls the strikers’ reports of the incident “fairy tales.”

An ambulance was called to the scene, after the victim (below) says he was bumped on the leg by the vehicle and lost his balance, but it doesn’t appear the picketer was seriously hurt.

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The Coke strike is going into week four in Saskatoon.

58 employees of the Coca-Cola bottling Company in Saskatoon, members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 558, walked off the job on Tuesday, June 9th.

Rocky Luchsinger (LUCK-singer), RWDSU Saskatchewan representative, says Coca-Cola’s last offer included the removal of Article 21, which forbids the company to contract out work.

Luchsinger says the members are not interested in signing away their own jobs.

There are no talks scheduled at this point.

The workers have been without a contract since January 1st.

The strike doesn’t apply to Coca-Cola in Regina, where employees are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

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I am astounded at the illegal acts performed by some CUPE workers but even that is not as astonishing as the turn-a-blind-eye attitude of our law enforcers.

I never swore to support this union, yet I am supposed to follow its rules? I am supposed to let them hold me up for five minutes, allow them to threaten and bully me if I go somewhere that doesn’t meet with their approval?

I realize police officers are also city employees and I’m sure they side with the CUPE workers but they also have to serve and protect all citizens, not just their union buddies.

To hear Jean Fox or Gary Parent say they are allowed to hold up people is ludicrous. The man held for hours by bullying CUPE workers should be considered, at minimum to be hostage-taking and at maximum, kidnapping.

The union’s arrogance in thinking it is gaining public sympathy is amazing. The 5,000-name petition in support of arbitration is a farce. Of the names, 1,800 are members, add their significant others, throw in a few hundred of their adult children and friends and there’s 5,000.

I support Mayor Francis and hope, if and when this strike is settled, no overtime is given to workers to get our city back to normal. We’ve endured the ugliness this long and having to endure it a bit longer if it means no overtime, is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

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The cereal giant’s London workforce has voted against a deal that its union says would cost 100 jobs

Kellogg’s workers are staying out on the picket line.

The locked-out employees of the U.S. cereal giant’s London plant turned down a tentative deal yesterday, sending the company and union back to the bargaining table.

“It is very frustrating dealing with a company as profitable as they are who want to change the lives of its workers without good reason,” said Bob Martin, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union Local 154-G.

There were 453 union members at the meeting yesterday and 290 voted against the tentative agreement.

“That is a pretty solid rejection number,” Martin said.

The deal offered workers a 7% salary increase over three years and improvements to the pension and benefit package, but it also would have cut more than 100 jobs from a total of 488, Martin said.

That cut would have meant the elimination of the “weekend shift” where 105 senior workers work 12 hours Saturday at time-and-a-half pay and 12 hours Sunday at double time. They do not work the balance of the week, having earned the equivalent of 42 hours straight pay.

That would have seen 105 with the least seniority laid off and the balance of the workforce shifted into working weekends on a rotating basis, Martin said.

“The top 100 were unhappy, the bottom 100 were unhappy, the middle guys didn’t like it because they had to work overtime. I told them at the table I would not be able to sell this,” he said.

“Let’s just say it left a bad taste in their mouths.”

In a prepared statement, Kellogg said it will weigh its options after the vote.

“Kellogg Canada is disappointed that the employees at its London, Ontario plant have voted not to accept the latest offer recommended by their union leadership. We will be reviewing our options and next steps over the weekend,” said a message from company spokesperson Penny Savoie.

The Kellogg plant will be a rallying point tomorrow for an Ontario Federation of Labour caravan.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horvath will lead the convoy touring 50 Ontario communities this month protesting job cuts and plant closures.

The caravan will meet at the plant at 2 p.m., said Patti Dalton, London and District Labour Council president.

“We will have a mass show of solidarity, we will send a strong message. Corporations think it’s open season on unions, and if they think we will just sit and take it, we will not,” Dalton said.

“We are solid, stronger than ever.”

Information on the caravan can be found at www.drivetowork.ca

The local Kellogg plant manufactures about 65 million kilograms of cereal a year, down from 100 million kilograms in 2005.

But cereal demand and Kellogg profits remain high, as London workers have seen production here shifted to American plants, and there hasn’t been a drop in demand, Martin said.

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National Steel Car employees have voted to stay on strike to fight for better severance assurances, pension contributions and seniority rights.

About 650 workers, who have been on strike since April, voted 67 per cent against the company’s final offer yesterday despite the economic downturn.

“We are waiting for the company to come back and bargain. We are willing to do that anytime,” said Steve Weller, president of United Steelworkers Local 7135.

“We are disappointed with the result,” said National Steel Car spokesman Peter Earle last night.

“We are considering our options going forward.

“No decisions have been taken about anything.”

The union said the company did not agree to acceptable “closing out” provisions for worker severances and benefits in the event National Steel Car shuts the doors on the Hamilton plant.

“The company is building a plant in Alabama and we are not sure how much security we have in the next few years,” Weller said.

The rail car workers also rejected National Steel Car’s three-year freeze on pension contributions.

“We would get our pension credits but no increases,” he said.

The union walked off the job 12 weeks ago after the company demanded a 25 per cent rollback in hourly wages and benefits. Workers had already absorbed a wage cut by going to a four-day work week, Weller said.

That has since dropped off the table with the company’s latest offer calling for no wage or benefit reductions.

But Weller said workers are also unhappy that the rail car-maker wants new hires to work at $14 an hour for a year before being bumped up to the union’s $25 hourly wage that includes piecework.

“It used to be 1,030 hours before you got bumped up, now they want it to be 2,080 hours,” he said.

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‘We are prepared to take job action to fight off the concessions tabled by this employer.’ – Bargaining chair Brenda Thompson.

Toronto (18 June 2009) – Employees of Canadian Blood Services have voted 98% to strike if necessary to fight contract concessions at the bargaining table.

The employees are members of the support bargaining unit of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE).

OPSEU says the results “are a strong message” that the employees will not accept concessions.

“OPSEU members are very concerned about the major issues, which include concessions to hours of work, days off and consecutive weekends,” says bargaining chair Brenda Thompson.

“We are prepared to take job action to fight off the concessions tabled by this employer.”

Talks between OPSEU and the employer continue in conciliation June 23-25. The employees have been working without a contract since March 31. The last contract was negotiated in 1995 following a 95% strike vote.

OPSEU represents approximately 900 full-time and part-time members in the support unit at Canadian Blood Services. The workers include drivers, utilities workers, clerks, administrative assistants, lab assistants, clinic assistants and phlebotomists.

NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada’s largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE

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