Toronto soon to be world's smellest city (Garbage Strike)

[aerius]

Then why don't you switch to the private sector, if you're so annoyed with your co-workers and your benefits. Otherwise, stop complaining.

I like my job. I worked in the private sector before and the costs/benefits don't balance out for me. My point is simple, government union workers are so spoiled & out of touch with reality that's it's not even funny. We already have the best benefits package around which covers every reasonable contingency and even some unreasonable ones. And people still whine & cry that it's not good enough, and go on stupid strikes like this one.

Also, regarding wages. Union wants wage increases, city wants cuts. Why they don't just index the wages to cost of living, but the real cost of living adjustments, with gas and food costs factored, in. The major reason for strikes would disappear.

Guess what, all the contracts have wage increases in excess of the CPI and cost of living increases. And the fuckers still strike every time a contract is up. I'd love it if they indexed the wages to the actual cost of living, because that way everyone would take an annual PAY CUT for the next few years. Can you say deflation?

As to the timing, the unions have been working since January 1st with no contract. Negotiations have NOT been going since then, but only the last few weeks/days. If the city had started negotiating earler, there would not be this problem in the summer. It is even worse with the federal government. They sign 3 year contracts which expire within months of signing, because the feds wait years before they start negotiating.

Do they still get paid? Yes. Do they still have their jobs? Yes. Then who the fuck cares if they have a contract?

[General Trelane (Retired)]

'Banking' sick days actually makes sense as a union benefit in the US, where we don't have any mandated paid sick leave (and didn't even have mandated unpaid leave until FMLA during the early 1990's).
In Canada, not so much.

Why not so much? Canada doesn't have mandated sick leave either. This would fall under Provincial juridiction. As an Albertan, I don't know whether Ontario has any legislation mandating sick leave, but Alberta definitely does not.

That said, to me the very concept of banking sick days seems plain silly.

[Solauren]

'Banking' sick days actually makes sense as a union benefit in the US, where we don't have any mandated paid sick leave (and didn't even have mandated unpaid leave until FMLA during the early 1990's).
In Canada, not so much.

Why not so much? Canada doesn't have mandated sick leave either. This would fall under Provincial juridiction. As an Albertan, I don't know whether Ontario has any legislation mandating sick leave, but Alberta definitely does not.

That said, to me the very concept of banking sick days seems plain silly.

I don't recall mandatory sick days either, and my wife is loath to take time off work for lack of them, so I'm willing to say 'No, Ontario doesn't require them'.

However, alot of places in Ontario (union or not) have offered them to employees in the past (and present), depending on the sector. Some industries are very competive with each other when it comes to who they want to hire.

[Glocksman]

My mistake.
I thought Canada had mandated paid sick leave.

[Broomstick]

At least in the US there was a time when the unions did some good, and there probably are still some unions (probably smaller ones) who still provide some benefit to their members. However, those of us who have either taken paycuts or lost our jobs entirely in this economy, those of us who have never worked under a contract, and who have never had the lush benefits really do see some of these union folks as spoiled whiners who have no clue what's really good for them. Sometimes, it's in your self-interest to give way a little rather than destroy your employer.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I don't recall mandatory sick days either, and my wife is loath to take time off work for lack of them, so I'm willing to say 'No, Ontario doesn't require them'.

Alberta's Employment Standards Code is available on the goverment website, so I would imagine Ontario's is as well (I'm too lazy to check--I happened to have the Alberta link bookmarked out of need ).

However, alot of places in Ontario (union or not) have offered them to employees in the past (and present), depending on the sector. Some industries are very competive with each other when it comes to who they want to hire.

Offering more than the bare minimum requirements of the employment code is a common practise and it varies from industry to industry. For example, it is common practise here to offer a fresh engineering graduate three weeks of vacation to start instead of the required minimum of two weeks.

My mistake.
I thought Canada had mandated paid sick leave.

I wasn't sure if it was that or if you were alluding to the differences in the health-care system.

[aerius]

Why not so much? Canada doesn't have mandated sick leave either. This would fall under Provincial juridiction. As an Albertan, I don't know whether Ontario has any legislation mandating sick leave, but Alberta definitely does not.

We get a minimum of 10 unpaid mandatory sick days under the Ontario Employment Standards Act, employers are of course free to hand out more or give out paid sick days, and many of them do so. I worked in the electronics assembly industry before I got my cushy government job, 10 paid sick days a year was the minimum standard even for temporary contract workers.

[Edi]

The North American way of doing things seems fucking strange to me.

Finland has a system where you get two paid vacation days per month of employment for the first year and 2.5 days per month thereafter. That's 24 days for first year, 30 per year thereafter, as the minimum mandated by law. There is nothing to prevent companies from allowing more vacation, which is used as an incentive in some places to get quality people. Banking vacation days (if you can't use them all up for some reason) is subject to negotiation with your employer. If you can't use them and the employer won't let you bank them, they have to pay you extra money for it.

Sick days work so that you can get up to three of them without seeing a doctor, but you do need to see a nurse and get a cert for that. Longer periods require a doctor's diagnosis. There's no cap and firing a worker due to illness is forbidden by law. Conversely, you aren't going to get any sick leave days just because, since any medical professional who hands them out baselessly is liable to lose their license or at the very least their job, so not going to happen too often. Employers can also mandate which health care companies are used for employer provided healthcare (which is separate from and in addition to the public system).

There was a big national headline news level scandal a few years back when some hairdresser chain tried to circumvent employer protection laws, deny sick leave, prevent employees from seeing a doctor and not accepting doctor's notes, firing employees who didn't knuckle under to their demands. By the time the courts were through with them, the company was out of business, the owners had several felony convictions and were they banned from operating a business again.

So the stuff that people have been describing as generous in this thread is, on average, closer to the absolute legally mandated minimums here. I'll admit that our worker protection laws are tight and in some cases companies should have more discretion in how to deal with certain kinds of things, but so far things have worked fairly well.

As far as unions go, they have been useful, but some unions are absolutely obnoxious and we're seeing the results with the paper companies, which are basically shutting down a lot of operations here and moving them elsewhere due to unreasonable union demands.

[aerius]

Sick days work so that you can get up to three of them without seeing a doctor, but you do need to see a nurse and get a cert for that. Longer periods require a doctor's diagnosis. There's no cap and firing a worker due to illness is forbidden by law. Conversely, you aren't going to get any sick leave days just because, since any medical professional who hands them out baselessly is liable to lose their license or at the very least their job, so not going to happen too often. Employers can also mandate which health care companies are used for employer provided healthcare (which is separate from and in addition to the public system).

This is something we desperately need over here. Most employers don't require a doctor or nurse's note for anything up to 3 or 5 days, so a good number of people (especially government workers) will abuse their sick days to go play golf with their buddies so they don't have to use up their paid vacation days. Government workers usually start with around 3 weeks of paid vacation a year plus another week or so of paid personal time off and it goes up from there. Up to half the paid vacation days can be carried over if you don't use them. After 8-10 years on the job we can take nearly 2 months of paid vacations every year if we wanted to so it's not like we're hurting for paid vacations, and yet the people will still abuse their sick days to play golf or drink at the bar instead of taking a paid vacation day. I have co-workers who call in sick once every week in the summer so they can play fucking golf, and we can't fire those assholes.

[Edi]

Sounds crazy.

Here it varies a bit, but standard for any decently sized companies is that your boss can give you one day off, so if you show up for work with the sniffles or running a fever, off you go, but anything beyond that up to three days requires the nurse cert and beyond that a doc visit. Keeps people honest. No company in its right mind is going to relax those requirements.

[Solauren]

In more government-related news from Ontario, it looks like the LCBO (Liqour sales) strike has been averted.

Meaning everyone can still get drunk (and thereby increase the trash), to get over the smell from the strike.

Tentative deal reached to avert provincewide liquor-store strike in Ontario

TORONTO - Ontario's government-run liquor stores and unionized employees have reached a tentative deal, averting a strike during the peak summer sales period.

The deal comes after negotiators from both sides pushed past a midnight deadline.

The key negotiating issue for the union was fighting for the rights of casual workers.

The union has said those employees don't receive vacation, sick time or benefits, and can be called in to work as little as two hours at a time.

A source close to the talks says terms of the deal include benefits for casual workers and more opportunities for full-time jobs.

Employees are working feverishly to replenish supplies after the threat of a strike prompted a run on booze across the province.

The union's bargaining team unanimously agreed on the deal and is planning a ratification vote as soon as possible.

Unfortunately for Toronto, this means the provincal government isn't going to be any hurry to legislate anyone back to work. (After all, the politiions can still have their beer and hookers )

[Broomstick]

Canada Day is next Wednesday, isn't it? Are drunken trash-generating backyard BBQ's customary, as in the US on the 4th? If the garbage strike isn't resolved by then.... ew.

Also, do Canadians do the fireworks thing, or not so much? I remember Detroit and Windsor having a joint fireworks show between the two holidays but I haven't a clue what the rest of Canada does (or doesn't) do.

[SCRawl]

Canada Day is next Wednesday, isn't it? Are drunken trash-generating backyard BBQ's customary, as in the US on the 4th? If the garbage strike isn't resolved by then.... ew.

There won't be any official Canada Day parties in Toronto if the strike isn't over -- they'd require those workers to run them. As for private parties, yeah, they'll generate some trash. Honestly, though, if people can't manage their waste without government intervention for a week or two, then there's something wrong.

Also, do Canadians do the fireworks thing, or not so much? I remember Detroit and Windsor having a joint fireworks show between the two holidays but I haven't a clue what the rest of Canada does (or doesn't) do.

We do the fireworks, but not the minor explosives like on your side of the 49th. Mostly just a little flash and bang for the civilians, the bigger stuff is only in the hands of the professionals.

[muse]

Sounds crazy.

Here it varies a bit, but standard for any decently sized companies is that your boss can give you one day off, so if you show up for work with the sniffles or running a fever, off you go, but anything beyond that up to three days requires the nurse cert and beyond that a doc visit. Keeps people honest. No company in its right mind is going to relax those requirements.

It is crazy. Abuse of sick days is a pretty big problem here in Canada, partly because there's no accountability for taking short leaves of absence and also because companies in the private sector (minus the autoworkers) tend to shaft their workers on paid vacation days. So what happens then is employees start treating sick days as paid vacation days, for instance they may take a 7 day vacation then call in sick on the 7th or 8th day (while still on vacation) and stretch it out to a nice 10 day vacation.

For government wankers workers though there's no excuse, they have like a month of vacations plus weeks of sick days which can all be carried over. They're just spoiled rotten belly-achers.

[Ekiqa]

The main reason with the paise raise is that city councillors just gave themselves a pay raise of several percent, and refuse to dump it. So the union sees no reason why they should not get a pay raise too.

[SCRawl]

The main reason with the paise raise is that city councillors just gave themselves a pay raise of several percent, and refuse to dump it. So the union sees no reason why they should not get a pay raise too.

My understanding was that the main sticking points are the bankable sick time (which the city wants to replace with short-term disability coverage), job security, scheduling and seniority rights. I haven't seen complaints about wages anywhere.

Here's an article from cbc.ca that points out one reason why they can't keep the status quo:

The Canadian Union of Public Employees workers on strike in Toronto earn 1.5 sick days every month. If they don't use the days, they go into the bank. That could amount to 18 days a year.

When he or she retires, a unionized worker with 25 year's experience can cash those days out for a maximum of a six-month bonus.

Critics say Toronto's problem is that it hasn't set aside enough money to pay for those future benefits.

"It's $250 million [liability] for the City of Toronto," said Coun. Doug Holyday. "We simply can't afford that any longer."

That might be an exaggeration, but even if that figure is double what it is in reality, that's a pretty big chunk of money. Too much to just swallow, when the more obvious solution is to just cram some concessions down the union's throats. I can see how the negotiator might phrase it: "Don't like the new deal? Fine, there are private companies just waiting to take over your jobs. They'll probably need to hire some new people for the extra work, so you can apply there, though you might not care for the pay cut."

[aerius]

I can see how the negotiator might phrase it: "Don't like the new deal? Fine, there are private companies just waiting to take over your jobs. They'll probably need to hire some new people for the extra work, so you can apply there, though you might not care for the pay cut."

I hope they do that. I want them to do that. If I were religious I would pray for that to happen.

[Sephirius]

Aerius, you wouldn't happen to live in North York, would you?

[aerius]

Nope, Etobicoke. We contracted out our trash pickup around 15 years ago and it saves us a couple million bucks a year. Plus we have service during all the city strikes. It's great.

[Sephirius]

Fucking Megacity, Fuck North York and Etobicoke
same deal should be for everywhere.

[Ma Deuce]

I hope they do that. I want them to do that. If I were religious I would pray for that to happen.

As much as I would love to see that happen, I seriously doubt it will as long as you have a mayor who is (or rather was) in bed with the Unions, some of whom are now accusing him of engineering the strike to gain cred with the city's right-leaning voters. The absurdity of that accusation aside, it really doesn't seem likely that Miller wants to be at odds with organized labour, given his reluctance to come out as decisively against picketers blocking the temporary dump sites as he did on the illegal dumpers, and his refusal to cross picket lines at city hall.

That's one good argument against public sector unions: If you have a party or individual who came to power in part thanks to union support, it creates a massive conflict of interest when that same labour-friendly government must negotiate contracts with some of those unions (especially in times that call for fiscal restraint), as Bob Rae found out the hard way.

[aerius]

Fuck you David Miller, fuck you and die you union cock sucking scumbag. The lying sack of shit claims that he eliminated the sick day banking, then after being grilled by reporters it turns out that anyone with 10 years or more of seniority gets to keep the banking system, and it's only new workers and workers with less than 10 years who don't get to bank them anymore. Oh yeah, and 5.6% in pay raises over the next 3 years. And the fuckers want overtime pay for cleaning up all the shit that piled up during the strike. What the fuck is this bullshit? Fire them all and contract out their jobs.

[SCRawl]

I'm not sure how frightened I should be that we agree on this.

Seriously, the city held out for over a month for this? I admit that, going forward, it'll save them some money, but they had the chance to break the union over this issue. The damage was already done. Why not be a hard ass? If I were a voter in Toronto, I'd have serious doubts about Miller's ability to make the tough decision when he's willing to settle for such a minor concession.

The pay raises don't bother me that much, though in these times it's a little steep.

[aerius]

Seriously, the city held out for over a month for this? I admit that, going forward, it'll save them some money, but they had the chance to break the union over this issue. The damage was already done. Why not be a hard ass?

No kidding. I was watching the grilling on the evening news when one of the reporters asked him what the hell the point of the strike was if the city was going to cave in anyway. Miller said something like "well, we could've just given them a 12% raise upfront and there probably wouldn't be a strike". Seriously. He really said that.

If I were a voter in Toronto, I'd have serious doubts about Miller's ability to make the tough decision when he's willing to settle for such a minor concession.

Unfortunately Torontonians will forget about all this by the time he's up for elections next year. Miller's a fucking incompetant, end of story. And he's got the union cock halfway down his throat. I need to take a few days off soon so I can go vent my anger at him in person. I'm pretty sure I'll feel better after yelling at him for a few minutes.

[Darth Wong]

Torontonians will only forget about this if Miller's opposition is completely incompetent. Honestly, the big problem we had during the last election was that nobody could organize any kind of credible campaign against him. If his opposition plays Keystone Cops again, he will win. We just have to hope that they find some kind of competent individuals.