Whoaccio
Senior Member
This is exactly why I think public sector jobs should be prohibited from forming Unions, or at least for striking without being able to point to a clear threat to their well being. They shouldn't be able to leapfrog each other with "highest pay" clauses.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080815.wlabour15/BNStory/National/home
JAMES RUSK
From Friday's Globe and Mail
August 15, 2008 at 5:45 AM EDT
Toronto faces a one-two punch from its two largest labour unions, threatening wage increases that would swamp the city's budget and trigger a sharp rise in property taxes next year.
The left jab is a compulsory arbitration between the Toronto Police Services Board and the Toronto Police Association that begins on Sept. 19. The association will argue that the only acceptable settlement is to make Toronto police the highest paid in the country.
The right hook follows in November, when the two locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees that represent almost all other city departments, except firefighters and transit workers, start to bargain for a new contract.
Brian Cochrane, president of CUPE Local 416, which usually sets the running in bargaining with the city, said in an interview that he expects "a very nasty set of negotiations."
While he does not know what tack the city will follow, "with the present climate, there is not a chance in hell that we are going to reach an agreement with these folks," Mr. Cochrane said.
By the time CUPE and the city get down to financial considerations - wages are usually the final issue settled - they are likely to know what the arbitrator awards the police association, representing 5,500 uniformed officers and 2,100 civilian employees.
"The reality for us this time is that we believe that we will get a fairer deal in arbitration than we will from the police services board," said police association president Dave Wilson.
"Over the last decade it has always been recognized within bargaining that Toronto officers need to be compensated to become the highest paid."
Mr. Wilson said the last contract, which expired on Jan. 1, now leaves Toronto police between $2,500 and $3,000 a year behind Peel Region officers and the Ontario Provincial Police.
With the starting wage for a Toronto constable at just over $50,000 a year, Mr. Wilson's numbers point to a wage demand in the range of 5 to 6 per cent this year, whether the arbitrator decides on a one-year contract or something longer.
Police board chair Alok Mukherjee, who welcomed the decision to go to arbitration after eight months of bargaining and two months of mediation failed to find agreement, said the board cannot be locked into formulaic bargaining that automatically gives Toronto police the highest wages in Canada.
Such an approach to setting wages has become "a device for engaging in leap-frogging" that has led to wage-boosting provisions in contracts, such as one in Peel Region's last agreement that calls for the contract to be reopened in 2010 for its police officers to get a raise if they are not the highest paid in Canada.
"No responsible employer would want to enter into such an agreement," and the TPSB, while it will pay police as well as it can within the needs of taxpayers, would not offer its staff such a concession, he said.
Mr. Wilson declined to say whether he has demanded a similar provision, but he did repeat that Toronto police would not be getting the respect they deserve if they are not the highest paid in Canada.
For his part, Mr. Cochrane said that he will be watching the outcome of the police arbitration, as past police wage settlements have been a relevant factor as he and the leaders of the other city CUPE locals shape their wage demands.
"I wouldn't say it's lockstep, but certainly we very much keep an eye on what is happening in the same way we do with Toronto Fire."
What bothers him going into his talks is that is "the general labour relations atmosphere that we are currently under in this city. It is pathetic. It is commensurate with the labour relations relationship that we had pre-2002."
Local 416 says it represents about 9,000 city employees. Local 79 says it represents about 16,000 full and part-time city workers, not counting those employed by Toronto Community Housing.
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