Bargaining with library workers is going nowhere and little headway is being made in talks between the city and outside workers, they said.

Friday, the library workers sought the assistance of a provincial conciliator as the city seeks major changes to the contract, said Maureen O’Reilly, president of CUPE Local 4948.

Earlier this month, the city asked the minister of labour to issue a no-board report with respect to the outside workers which set the clock ticking toward a strike or lockout as of 12:01 a.m. Feb. 5.

The fear is the city will either move to lock out its workers, or try to provoke them into striking, said Mark Ferguson, president of CUPE Local 416 representing 6,000 outside workers.

Once the deadline arrives, the existing collective agreement with Local 416 is no longer in force and the city would have an opportunity to make unilateral changes as a way to force a strike, Ferguson said.

Paying everyone minimum wage, for example, would be an action the city could take in pursuing a strategy of provoking a strike, union officials said.

“I don’t believe this administration is serious about getting to a deal,” Ferguson said. “This isn’t about negotiation. This is about payback for 2009” (when there was a 39-day strike).

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Unions must overhaul themselves dramatically — and fast — or face a slow death, says a secret report by the two groups contemplating the biggest merger in Canadian labour history.

In a surprisingly blunt assessment of organized labour’s current difficulties, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union say in a discussion paper that they must become a lot more relevant to working people, not only in contract bargaining, but for social change.

The paper, titled “A Moment of Truth for Canadian Labour,” says the economic pressures of globalization, growing employer aggression, hostile government policy and public cynicism have weakened unions significantly during the past two decades.

“If unions do not change, and quickly, we will steadily follow U.S. unions into continuing decline,” says the paper, which is marked “confidential.”

“We must reverse the erosion of our membership, our power and our prestige.”

Statistics show union membership in the private sector in Canada has slid from about 30 per cent in the early 1970s to 17.4 per cent — or 1.92 million employees — excluding farm workers. Public sector unionization remained at about 75 per cent in the same period.

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INGERSOLL – A rail crossing on the main street of this town became the site of a standoff Wednesday as union members blocked the delivery of a locomotive to protest the lockout of Electro-Motive workers.

About 50 protestors, mainly from Canadian Auto Workers Local 88 in Ingersoll, blocked the movement of the locomotive that was on a siding near a rail crossing on Thames St.

“Our plans are to hold up the locomotive as long as possible until we are told to move,” said Bob Scott, chairperson of the CAW unit at Electro-Motive.

An Ontario Southland train arrived about 10:45 a.m. to pick up the locomotive but union protesters asked the engineer to stop.

OPP officers were called to the scene, but Const. Stacey Culbert said they were only there to keep the peace and ensure traffic safety.

An Ontario Southland official at the scene declined comment.

The locomotive was one of the last to be assembled at the Electro-Motive plant and was moved just prior to the Jan. 1 lockout so it could be delivered to a customer in Brazil.

Scott said the locomotive has been tracked by the union and most recently was at a testing facility in Stratford. The locomotive was en route to a facility near Tillsonburg to be painted before it’s delivered.

The testing and painting is normally done at the London plant on Oxford St.

One of the protesters at the blockade was Mike Peacock, a locked-out Electro-Motive worker who lives in Ingersoll.

“That should be my job, painting that train. They were going to move it right past my house,” Peacock said.

Dan Borthwick, chairperson of CAW Local 88, said the protest began about 5:30 a.m. and senior CAW officials were aware of the action.

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Exactly three months after the strike first began, a tentative agreement has been reached between Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union and Veolia Transportation which operates Viva bus service.

The settlement is subject to ratification by the 220 members of Local 113 who work for Veolia. The vote will be held Thursday.

This tentative deal is unrelated to ongoing negotiations between ATU Local 1587 and Miller Transit, which operates YRT buses on 51 routes in Markham, Richmond Hill and Whitchurch-Stouffville. Negotiations between the two sides are scheduled to resume Wednesday.

The ongoing labour dispute has affected 60 per cent of YRT service, inconveniencing about 44,000 people a day.

Veolia says the new agreement would last four years, and include a wage increase and improve benefits like healthcare and sick days. Local 113 has refused to comment on the nature of the agreement until ratification, however they are recommending the membership accept the agreement.

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Just under 700 Metro Transit workers have voted 98.4 per cent against the Halifax Regional Municipality’s final contract offer.

Ken Wilson, president of Local 508, called the HRM’s offer an “insult.”

“I’ve heard rumours from my members that the mayor [Peter Kelly] was on the TV tonight saying that this was a fair offer that he offered us. It is absolutely not,” he told CBC News on Sunday night.

“We are a vital part of the organization. We’re not looking for a lot, we’re looking to be respected and to be treated fairly, as we have for the last 30 years with this employer. The majority of times, anyway.”

Wilson said the biggest concession his members disagreed with was contracting out, which he said was the reason for the five-week Metro Transit strike in 1998.

He said the HRM’s wording of “contracting out” means the employer could contract out any work except for work on the scheduled run guide — also meaning specific routes could be contracted out to other people.

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Conciliation talks between the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Amalgamated Transit Union have broken off, which may mean a strike or a lockout by Metro Transit workers on Feb. 2.

Ken Wilson, president of Local 508, said city officials have unnecessarily rushed the bargaining process.

“Our typical negotiations take 12 to 14 months. Look at other business units in HRM. The police have been without a contract for two years. Water Commission, four years,” he said.

Wilson said Metro Transit workers have been without a contract since Sept. 1.

“All of a sudden, they’re done? We’re going to take a strike vote? That’s absolutely unacceptable. That’s why I’m asking the citizens of HRM to contact the mayor, the councillors and let’s get us back to the bargaining table,” he said.

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On the eve of the three-month mark of the York Region Transit (YRT) strike, there’s reason for some cautious optimism among commuters: all sides are back at the bargaining table this week.

Talks between the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1587 and Miller Transit — the company contracted to operate YRT buses on 51 routes — are set to continue Monday after both sides returned to the table on Friday. Local 1587 president Ray Doyle told CityNews the mood of the talks being held in Markham has been positive. He also said he’s hopeful a deal could be reached on Monday.

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Toronto could be facing either a city lockout or a strike of unionized outdoor workers in 17 days.

Either type of work stoppage will become legal at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 5, under a “no board” report issued Thursday by the provincial labour minister.

News of the widely expected report, which was requested by Mayor Rob Ford’s administration, arrived before both deputy mayor Doug Holyday and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 president Mark Ferguson expressed a new optimism about the state of negotiations.

Holyday said the union had taken a “huge step in the right direction” by tabling written proposals at a Thursday bargaining meeting. Ferguson said the union “noticed a distinct difference at the bargaining table.”

“For the first time, the city was actually willing, and open, and engaging in the discussions that they had with us. If this tone continues through the bargaining process, that is a very good thing,” Ferguson said, calling the shift “a major breakthrough.”

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Thousands upon thousands of union and community members will take part in a mass rally, calling on U.S.-based Caterpillar to end the lock-out of its nearly 500 workers and for the Harper government to put jobs before tax cuts. Community members are already expecting the demonstration at the London’s Victoria Park to be the largest public rally the city has seen in decades.

Already approximately 70 buses have registered from right across Ontario, with hundreds more people driving into the event. The buses have been organized by the CAW and the Ontario Federation of Labour, working with local labour councils and community groups.

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A provincial mediator is bringing a union local and contractor involved in the York Region Transit strike back to the bargaining table following a warning from region officials.

Representatives of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587 and Miller Transit are scheduled to resume contract talks Friday.

This is the first time talks have resumed since ATU Local 1587 members rejected Miller Transit’s last offer in a labour-supervised vote Jan. 6.

“We will listen to what they have to say (Friday),” said ATU Local 1587 president Ray Doyle. “Our members want to get back to work but it has to be on terms that recognize and respect the value of the work they do.”

Doyle said the union would prefer to end the strike immediately through binding arbitration.

Negotiations are resuming after York Region terminated its contract with First Canada, and warned the other parties involved in the strike, which is now in its 13th week, to reach agreements by Friday.

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