Rob Ford.
Mayoral Rob Ford vowed to take a tough stand with the city's unions, including members of CUPE Local 416 in the current round of contract negotiations.
Staff file photo/NICK PERRY
The City of Toronto’s aggressive strategy at the bargaining table had a major impact in getting a tentative deal signed with the union representing its outside workers, said the city’s Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday in an interview.
“The strategy was unique, it was clever, and I’m not taking credit – it’s our human resources department,” said Holyday in an interview with Toronto Community News.
“They devised this plan and they stuck with it. They knew where they were going from the start.”
Holyday made the comments hours after CUPE Local 416 President Mark Ferguson told the media that his team had struck a tentative deal with the city, in an around-the-clock bargaining session at the Sheraton Hotel that ended around 8 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 5.
“We now have a tentative settlement in place,” he said. “We will be returning to the table tomrorrow at nine o’clock to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.” Ferguson went on to characterize the negotiations as “the toughest labour negotiations in Canadian history.”
The city had taken an aggressive stance from early in negotiations. Before the contract with CUPE Local 416 had even expired, the city had requested conciliation – and early in January, the city asked for a “no-board” report, setting a countdown for a strike or lockout.
During that time, Ferguson made it clear his members had no intention of striking and even took the unusual measure of publicly offering to continue the contract as-is and accept a three-year wage freeze.
The city responded by rejecting that offer, and late in negotiations announcing that it would be simply imposing its final offer as of the strike/lockout deadline of 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
If the union didn’t like those conditions, it would have to call a strike vote.
According to Denzil Minnan-Wong, a North York councillor who sits on the city’s labour relations committee, it was on Saturday that the mood shifted from a stand-off over job security issues that seemed bound for a strike to a willingness to negotiate.
“If you asked me on Thursday or Friday I would have been less optimistic – but on Saturday there seemed to be some momentum developing,” he said. “And then in the evening – by I suspect late on Saturday – the number of issues on the table had decreased substantially.”
Holyday made no bones that the tough stance had broken what otherwise had become a pattern in city negotiations with its unions – where the issues fester until the summer months and the city has little choice but to capitulate.
“We produced pressure points,” said Holyday. “Each of those causes something different to happen. The first one, the conciliator coming in and the no board report, caused the union to come forward offering to freeze wages for three years. And as we got closer to the date things started to happen.”
Holyday said that he was at the hotel most of the night, but he and other politicians made a point of staying out of negotiations.
He said it was also important to keep city council out of the loop as negotiations progressed.
“There were some on council who didn’t want us to have the power to change the contract or unilaterally change the conditions of employment,” he said.
“Well, if we’d come back to council – the union would have known they’d have a better chance on the north side of Queen (where Toronto City Hall sits) than they did on the south side.”
Holyday and others who spoke with Toronto Community News were mum on the details of the agreement.
It must be ratified first by members of CUPE Local 416 and then by Toronto City Council.
In the meantime, however, Holyday said that the success of Mayor Rob Ford’s administration at the bargaining table should send a message to councillors wavering in their support of the Ford agenda.
“I think the public will appreciate what’s happened after all is said and done,” said Holyday. “I think Rob Ford’s star shines brighter, and that’s what controls those councillors – some of the ones that are swayable.”