Proud Union Town?
On June 22, Toronto City workers went on strike. Overnight, Torontonians were left without community centres, swimming pools, road maintenance, public health inspections, building permits and of course – no garbage or recycling pick up. It wouldn’t be until 39 days later that an agreement would be finalized and City workers told to go back to work. However despite the seemingly reasonable settlement between the 30 000 City employees and the City, the strike and the anti-union frenzy that it has generated signal some important things for working people to take into account the deeper we get into this economic recession (despite what some wish thinking bank economists may be saying).
The Settlement and the ‘Crisis’
Ideological perspectives aside, anyone ever having been involved in labour negotiations would understand the implications and circumstances around arbitration under their jurisdictions labour regulations. Aside from subjective factors around the workplace, previous collective agreements and the specific negotiations in questions, there are also objective factors such as agreements in comparable industries.
Considering these factors and what could have been the likely outcome of binding arbitration (which considers these factors in imposing a decision if arbitration is agreed upon or if an impasse leads to arbitration being mandated), the City of Toronto made off pretty well. The agreed upon increase of 2% per year for 3 years was below the average for municipal workers in the surrounding GTA in recently signed agreements. Then of course there is the phase out of the now infamous ‘sick bank’, in which workers could bank and roll over a certain amount of sick days. Right-wing Councillors and tabloid columnists such as Sun writer turned Tory candidate Sue Ann Levy have tried desperately to paint this as proof of the City of Toronto, left-leaning Councillors and particularly Mayor David Miller cowering to the ‘all-mighty’ unions who run this City as their fiefdom at the ‘tax-payers’ expense. Unfortunately, these arguments did not sway Doug Holyday, among the most fiscally conservative of the Mayor’s opposition Councillors. Holyday, former Mayor of Etobicoke was at the helm when Etobicoke phased out their sick bank knew that arbitration would likely lead to a more favourable deal for the union.
What these Councillors and their pundit allies were successful in doing was to skew the public debate and win support for the idea that workers should have to make sacrifices during because of the ‘crisis’.
None of this is to say that there aren’t concerns around Toronto’s fiscal situation. Despite the recently implemented land transfer tax and vehicle registration tax, the City is still looking at a significant deficit in the upcoming budget (some estimates have the approximate figure as $400 Million). What’s more, the City has had to increase property taxes (although they are still substantially lower than in the rest of the GTA) and increase or even implement user fees on services such as TTC, community recreation and others. Some might argue that inflationary reasons justify these increases, however this argument does not reason with the reality behind the City’s financial woes.
Tale of two cities: Toronto and New York
For those who can remember it, Toronto’s financial woes may be eerily reminiscent to 1970’s New York. At that time, New York City finances were being affected by a loss of industry as well as the decision of the Federal government to stop funding expanding public services. By 1975, the fiscal situation of the City became such that they could not – or were not allowed to – continue to re-finance its debt. As such, the City was forced into virtual bankruptcy and the City’s budget was put into financial ‘trusteeship’. Ironically, it was the unions and their pension money invested in City bonds which kept New York out of bankruptcy.
While it may be unlikely that Toronto will find itself in the same position, however the basis for the $400 Million deficit can be traced to similar roots and perhaps has the same trajectory.
Just like in New York, right wing ideologues in Council and in the media are spinning Toronto’s budgets as ‘out of control’ spending on ‘over-paid’ or even redundant City workers. Cuts to social housing, social services are being called for by many of these neoliberal crusaders.
Conveniently absent from the lexicon of the Mayor’s right-wing critics is any mention of the Harris Conservatives’ Government ‘revolution’ which completely re-arranged municipal financing. Overnight, municipalities were made larger in regional jurisdiction and service provisions. Funding for social housing, court services, public transportation were shifted entirely onto City’s in Ontario. Larger municipalities were forced to dip into their reserves to pay for man of these services, eve those that were provincially mandated. As the reserves dried up, one could imagine Mr. Harris salivating at the thought of his manufactured municipal financing crisis coming to fruition.
Today, Toronto finds itself at similar cross roads as the historically liberal New York of the 1970’s. Either politicians bite the political bullet and increase revenues through property tax increases and other fees (as Toronto has done) or reduce services (as the right-wing would like to see and which ultimately may occur despite the tax increases). What must be understood is that the biggest similarity between Toronto 2009 and New York 1975-77 is that the attack and the propositions from the right wing are not directed against an administration. These are ideological battles directed against the social welfare state created through workers struggles for wages and social services. Today, right wingers find a convenient excuse in the so called ‘economic crisis’ to argue for huge transfers of wealth to companies packaged as ‘stimulus’ at the same time as deeming workers wages, benefits and services – whether they be Toronto or Windsor municipal workers or GM factory employees – as unrealistic.
The audacity of those justifying multi-billion dollar bailouts to claim the interest of working people as unreasonable is imaginable only in a world where those same workers have accepted a societal ethos that runs contrary to our – that is collective – interests. Maybe we can spend a weekend or two thinking about this before weekends are also deemed unrealistic.
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Pretty thought-invoking post – raises some interesting points for debate. I just stumbled upon your blog this morning and wanted to say that I have really liked browsing some of the posts. Anyways, I’m subscribed to your feed and I hope to read more very soon!