Chapter Five

Concessionary Bargaining in Conservative Toronto, 2012–2014

Since 2008, austerity measures have dominated both the federal and provincial scales of governance as illustrated by public services retrenchment and labour strife. The Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, headed by former TD Bank chief economist, Don Drummond, put forward a series of proposed cuts to public services, most premised on lower service levels and private sector initiatives to fill existing voids. The Drummond Commission, as it was called, argued that without new forms of revenue generation (their mandate explicitly prevented them from exploring these options), program spending will need to be cut “more deeply on a real per capita basis, and over a much longer period of time, than the Harris government did in the 1990s” (Commision on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services 2012: 10). The Drummond Commission report has been criticized for its alarmist projections and “lack of evidence or data to support its recommendations” (ocufa 2012: 1–2). Others have roundly criticized the report for its flawed methodology, accounting oversights, exaggerated spending increases, overemphasis on government spending and for being constrained by the policies of neoliberalism (Noonen 2012; Mackenzie 2014).

While the 2010–12 Ontario budgets called for limiting growth in expenditures to 2 percent, continuing the aggressive restraint measures first enacted in 2008, the 2013–14 budget called for holding annual expenditure growth to 1.5 percent. Given inflation and population growth, such a limit is actually a significant decline in real per capita spending. What’s more, the Liberals’ austerity agenda is back-end loaded with each year of restraint being more aggressive than the last. By 2016–17, as the final year of the government’s fiscal plan shows, Ontario will have to freeze program spending and then cut spending by an additional 1 percent in 2017–18 in order to meet its stated goal of budget surpluses for which few details have been provided (Government of Ontario 2013). As others have shown, these reductions to public spending are not an economic necessity but rather a political imperative as Ontario’s budgetary deficit is on track to surplus without the additional austerity targets (Mackenzie 2014). The Drummond Commission also recommended reducing support for the municipal sector by delaying the uploading of services, with the Liberals not giving a clear direction on whether or not they will maintain the current schedule. In 2013, the City of Toronto received $150 million from the Province as compensation for the loss of social services funding, which is expected to wind down by 2016. The eventual expiry of federal housing agreements linked to social housing mortgages will also result in a reduction of $175 million in transfers per year by 2032.

The Mayor Ford era at City Hall was dominated by an explicitly neoliberal policy paradigm premised on turning valuable public assets over to the private sector, along with consequent reductions to public services and increased precarity of job tenure for municipal employees. These measures, for Ford and like-minded councillors, are presented to the public as “efficiencies” (Vincent 2011). 2012 began no differently, with Ford and aligned councillors reasserting their vow to sell 706 subsidized housing units, open up the city’s daycares (the country’s second largest with 24,000 subsidized spots) and nursing homes to public-private delivery models, as well as putting hundreds of parcels of land up for sale (Dale 2011a; James 2011). Additional plans included selling off Toronto Community Housing Corporation (worth $6 billion in housing stock), which would effect roughly 164,000 tenants; contracting-out Wheel-Trans public transit for special needs riders; scrapping the City’s Fair Wage policy; and privatizing the remaining portions of Toronto’s waste disposal services. In late 2012, City Council voted to sell the City’s 43 percent stake in deep-lake water-cooling company Enwave. Toronto finance staffers had estimated the sale to gross between $120 and $170 million, although the sale to Brookfield Asset Management eventually grossed $100 million, which was used to finance the City’s capital budget. As the first round of collective bargaining since the acrimonious 2009 strike and first as mayor for Ford, the 2012 round of negotiations served as a litmus test for both the City of Toronto and Locals 79 and 416 in a battle that would have significant consequences for the delivery of public services and the working conditions of city staff.

If the City was able to extract a host of concessions from the unions, this would signal an open attack across municipalities and the broader public sector. On the other hand, if Locals 79 and 416 not only managed to hold off concessionary demands, but actually extended some benefits to those most precariously employed and tied those gains to the community groups they served, it might have sparked a push back in the public sector, serving as an example for other unions and community groups at large. Unfortunately, the outcome of the 2012 round of collective bargaining tended toward the former scenario, likely serving as a template for other municipalities across Canada.

Labour Strife: Union Negotiations in 2012

Under the leadership of authoritarian populist Mayor Rob Ford (Kipfer and Saberi 2014), it was clear from the beginning that the City’s negotiating team would be taking a hard-line position during negotiations. Having made significant inroads to concessions during the 2009 round of bargaining, the City used the unpopularity of the previous strike as an opportunity to further extend their mandate of austerity and attacks against workers. The Employee and Labour Relations Committee (elrc), a subcommittee of mostly conservative councillors handpicked by the mayor, was responsible for negotiating with the unions’ various bargaining committees. The elrc did not need the approval of Council to lock out workers or unilaterally alter the terms of the contract. Locals 79 and 416’s collective agreements were set to expire on January 1, 2012. But by October 2011 the City had already served notice to Local 416 to begin bargaining. This formed part of the City’s broader orchestration to thoroughly defeat what remained of trade union militancy in Locals 79 and 416.

While talks had started months earlier, by mid-December 2011 both the City and Local 416 were accusing each other of bargaining in the media. However, by this point the City had already requested a conciliator as mandated by law. Just three days into the new year, the City of Toronto informed the Ministry of Labour that bargaining had reached an impasse. Two issues were crucial at this juncture. First, upon receipt of the City’s request, the Ministry of Labour could issue a “no board” report, which meant that after a period of seventeen days the City could lock out workers, unilaterally impose conditions or the union could strike. Second, the City used the time in between the issuance of a “no board” and a deadline as an opportunity to bargain publicly, intimidating workers into accepting the terms of a new agreement. Rather than threatening a lockout, the elrc argued that unless the terms of a new agreement were accepted, they would simply be imposed. In order to meet the challenges of a “cash-strapped city,” argued councillors and media pundits, workers would need to concede wages and benefits and, most of all, job security.

While negotiations faltered, on January 13, 2012, Local 416 held a press conference to try to sway public support. The union’s announcement was straightforward. In return for rolling over the existing contract, the union would forego wage increases for the duration of the contract. A moratorium on wage increases would translate into approximately $10 million in yearly savings. Local 416 also made the case that public sector workers should not be made to pay for an economic crisis not of their making. But the City immediately rejected what representatives of the elrc deemed a public relations ploy, stressing that what was central in this round of bargaining was employer “flexibility” not wage concerns. In this regard, the recasting of working people and job security as outmoded entitlements has been one of the great successes of neoliberalism.

Despite Local 416’s very public play, the City continued to push for the complete removal of a no-contracting-out clause that required workers whose jobs were eliminated or technologically displaced to be re-deployed to another position. Additionally, the City was seeking reductions to health and dental benefits as well as the termination of a clause that required the City to collect dues for the union. For accepting these so-called productivity-enhancing amendments, the City would give workers a lump sum payment of 1.5 percent of an employee’s base salary. The City later sweetened the pot by offering job security to those with at least twenty-five years of seniority, while the union moved from a position of no-concessions bargaining to job security for those with five years of experience. Clearly, this was a divisive strategy on the part of the City intended to create a row between newer and older workers. While the City continued to bargain with Local 416, Local 79 was focused on replacing its outgoing president and executive council, playing a minor role as Local 416 continued to bargain. On January 18, 2012, a “no board” report had been issued, which meant that a February 5th deadline had been set. The City continued to publicly stress that unless the union gave up “jobs for life,” an agreement would be imposed. This was framed in terms of increasing innovation, efficiency, flexibility and saving “taxpayers’” money and balancing “managerial rights” (Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday in Dale and Boyle 2012). Members of the elrc argued that public sector labour contracts must fall in line with the private sector. The City and union bargained past the deadline, reaching an agreement on February 13th.

Four terms of the agreement are central. First, the new agreement includes language that allows the City to unilaterally make any changes to shift schedules so long as employees are served notice. Annual job performance evaluations are now used to determine shifts and scheduling. This was a concession the City tried to force in 2002, 2005 and 2009, as the previous contract required that the worker and union agree to any shift/scheduling changes. Second, the new contract removes a letter of agreement that provided protection to all permanent employees regarding contracting-out or technological displacement. Under the new agreement, the threshold of protection was reduced from covering all workers to only those with at least fifteen years of seniority (a decrease of coverage from 100 to about 68 percent of employees). This had been a hallmark of previous rounds of bargaining. Third, the City reduced the amount of coverage for health and dental benefits, which, according to the terms of the new agreement, is expected to save the City some $20 to $35 million, and also eliminated expected post-retirement liabilities of $54 million. Fourth, in return for giving up a significant portion of their job security, workers received a one-time bonus of 1.5 percent, 0 percent in 2012, 0.5 percent in 2013, 1.75 percent in 2014 and 2.25 in 2015. A remaining issue left on the table was that related to reducing workplace absenteeism. Both the union and the City have agreed to study the matter further in what will likely be a major point of contention in the next round of bargaining.

With Local 416 having set the bar, the agreement was essentially rolled over to Local 79, which put it up for a vote without recommendation. Of Local 79’s four bargaining units, two units (Full-time and Part-Time Unit B) voted to accept the deal as is, but recreational part-time workers voted the deal down. The City and Local 79 went back to bargaining and were able to obtain some minor changes that increased the amount of hours an employee is allowed to work in a particular position and included a new provision stipulating paid time off for mandatory re-certification (e.g., cpr training). A fourth unit representing part-time employees of long-term care homes and services facilities also rejected some aspects of the new agreement due to a reduction of work hours and ongoing scheduling conflicts, but that dispute was sent to binding arbitration as these workers are deemed “essential.” As the experiences of labour history generally and Local 79 in particular have shown, small concessions beget larger concessions and unless workers are prepared to take job action, they will be hard pressed to resist demands for future concessions. Unfortunately, while the City of Toronto may have drawn important lessons from the experiences of 2009, Locals 79 and 416 seem to be undergoing a slow-motion death by a thousand cuts. In other words, Locals 79 and 416 continue to travel down a road paved with concessions without a cohesive strategy or political pushback to counter austerity urbanism.

Municipal Labour’s Last Gasp or Comeback?

The centre of gravity in the Canadian labour movement has gradually shifted since the 1980s from predominantly “blue-collar” private sector workers to one increasingly centred in the public sector and female led. With some 70 percent of the public sector still unionized, compared to about 16 percent in the private sector, the attacks on public sector unionism threaten to consolidate the defeat of organized labour. In light of the string of concessions for Locals 79 and 416, it was clear that the City of Toronto had drawn important lessons from past collective bargaining experiences. Equally important, it was evident the City, unlike the union, was thinking in broader class terms. With more than 250 cupe locals bargaining across Canada, municipalities and anti-tax crusaders were watching closely as the experiences of Toronto served as a template for other jurisdictions preparing to take on their public sector workers. “Municipalities will pay attention to what’s happening here,” argued Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday. “[This round of bargaining is] the defining experience in our city’s recent history,” he added. “It [attempts to impose a contract] hasn’t been done [in the public sector],” added Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, “No one else had the balls” (Ridler 2012; Grant 2012). In place of labour radicalism, then, it has been state militancy that has seized the moment and adapted to the conditions of recession and austerity. As one executive member of Local 79’s bargaining committee put it, unions have not adapted to the conditions of the twenty-first century, which require a new radicalized approach: “Now I know what it feels like to be an autoworker.” Indeed, in an ambitious strategy more than a year in the making, the City undertook a number of strategic and tactical initiatives that left the unions scrambling to keep up.

In order to avoid summer bargaining (and potentially a summer strike with garbage once again lining the streets), the City served notice to Local 416 to begin bargaining months in advance of the contract expiring. As part of the strategy, the aim was to divide and separate locals from one another, especially the largest, Local 79, whose contracts expired around the same time. A lack of coordination among cupe locals was compounded because Local 79 was in the process of electing a new president and executive. Had unions bargaining with the City sought to strategize collectively, Local 79, or the other two cupe locals bargaining, 4948 (library workers) and 2998 (Association of Community Centres and University Settlement House Workers) for example, could have served notice to begin bargaining earlier and put management in the hot seat, but they did not, which may have been a significant strategic mistake.

The City put together an aggressive negotiating team stacked with management firm lawyers with vast amounts of experience extracting concessions from unionized workers. This assisted the City in successfully establishing the tone of bargaining early as they developed contingency plans well in advance of contracts expiring. They also took the lead in establishing the public relations tone early, with councillors releasing memoranda from meetings with union reps to journalists and making frequent interventions in print, on radio and on television. As Globe and Mail columnist Kelly Grant (2012) put it: “As Canadian jurisdictions prepare to take on public-sector unions in a new age of austerity … the city’s plan worked and now other municipalities across the country are looking at replicating the Toronto model.”

Importantly, rather than lock out workers, the City of Toronto threatened to unilaterally impose contracts and alter the terms of employment. This was an unprecedented effort by a Canadian municipality, although it shares precedents with moves first undertaken in the U.S. industrial sector and later deployed by various levels of government (Fletcher and Gapasin 2008; Moody 1997). In Canada, this tactic was brought to light in Ontario when college administrators threatened to unilaterally impose the terms of the agreement unless unionized instructors accepted concessions in 2009–2010. After forcing a contract on instructors, just 51 percent of the union accepted the agreement (cbc 2010). In a similar fashion, unless cupe locals accepted the terms of the agreement, the City made clear it would simply implement their final offer. The union could then either strike completely, implement rotating strikes, work-to-rule or choose to continue bargaining with the City. Its legality, however, has not been established in the Canadian public sector.

In the event of a strike the City was prepared to implement a six-month contingency plan, which they did not have in 2009. The City was prepared to install hundreds of cameras at different picket sites and implement a waste management plan that would establish trash drop-off sites at yards and arena parking lots rather than city parks. Collectively, these strategies worked brilliantly to stifle, undermine and get the better of Locals 79 and 416. It also makes clear the limitations of cupe’s, the locals’ and the Toronto and York Region Labour Council’s singular focus on lobbying individual councillors. Councillors’ first priority is to get re-elected and, as the 2009 round of bargaining with a labour-friendly social-democratic mayor and progressive council showed, individual councillor support often hinges on broader public opinion. In light of recurring concessions, the question then is: what is cupe as a union and, specifically, Locals 79 and 416 prepared to do?

In Defence of the Public Sector: Some Thoughts on Strategy Moving Forward

Considering the concerted attacks against labour, should unions wish to regain their once-prominent role in the pursuit of social justice and workplace democracy, they will need to take the risks of organizing working-class communities and fighting back while they still have some capacity to do so or risk continuing the decades-long labour impasse and union decline. This requires a radicalized perspective that seeks to develop both alternative policies and an alternative politics rooted in a class-oriented unionism. It is a well-known truism that exclusion from the benefits of unionization often builds resentment among non-union workers, which has been made more intense in the neoliberalized landscape where the social welfare state has been dismantled. Genuine labour–community engagement requires taking stock of this dismantling and how badly and disproportionately it is affecting poor people and marginalized communities. Rebuilding unions and renewing working-class politics must engage directly with this resentment if it is to counter the drumbeats of austerity and retrenchment that have been a trademark since the global financial crisis.

Through 2013 and 2014, Rob Ford was mired in many personal and political controversies: allegations of sexual harassment; public drunkenness; video recordings of racist, homophobic and misogynist language; allegations, denials and subsequent admission of crack cocaine use; a City audit that found he had exceeded election campaign spending limits; a verdict in an Ontario court of law that found him guilty of breaking provincial conflict of interest laws, which was subsequently overturned under much controversy; and the defection of a handful of chief of staff, communication and press secretaries amidst mounting controversies (Doolittle 2014). The right-wing populism and prevailing Ford mythology in popular consciousness has been written about extensively by others (Kipfer and Saberi 2014). Despite the cascading series of controversies for Ford, austerity measures have become common sense at City Hall.

Future contract negotiations with Locals 79 and 416, which represent some 60 percent of civic workers proper, will reveal whether conservatives can consolidate their hold over Council, or whether or not the Toronto labour movement as a whole is up to the task of fighting back and mounting a campaign protecting vital public services. In the absence of such a fight back, future city councils, with the support of Toronto’s and Canada’s ruling classes, will continue to be forceful with respect to layoffs, service cuts, asset sell-offs and attacks against labour. This setting requires an alternative political/labour strategy, in particular for cupe Locals 79 and 416, given the harsh fact that the economic crisis has so far strengthened reactionary forces and efforts to reconstruct neoliberal policy frameworks. Such rethinking has implications for unions and community activists as a whole.

Previous strikes by Locals 79 and 416 have made it painfully clear that the locals cannot go into bargaining alone. Even with the support of cupe National, community groups, social justice activists and other unions, the mobilizational capacities, resources, organization and community and political support were not sufficient. As one activist member of Local 79 put it in 2014:

The new leadership is doing a much better job with outreach and advocacy, but it is not enough. What’s worse, if federal legislation like allowing secret ballots during strikes, banning the use of dues for so-called political purposes, requiring increased financial disclosure by unions, removal of the rand formula, and right-to-work legislation passes, cupe could lose up to 20 percent of its membership. In Ontario we’re in serious trouble … as if it wasn’t already bad enough! We’re talking about the survival of collective bargaining here.

Transforming unions internally and solidifying their relationships to others affected by the concerted push for austerity means not only building on the successes of earlier struggles but also confronting the shortcomings of previous strategies. Calls for solidarity without substance is mere posturing, just as militancy for militancy’s sake is reactionary and might well pave the way for future defeats. The challenge confronting Locals 79 and 416 and other unionized workers is to take the necessary steps in order to avoid sounding militant but then reproducing the status quo.

In other words, issues around rank-and-file mobilization, education, sustaining engagement and deepening coalitions beyond defensive struggles are central to (re)building workers’ political and organizational capacities. While strikes can be explosions of class consciousness, the working-class solidarity they generate rarely gathers momentum beyond the immediate event (Mann 1973). Hence, while strikes may lead workers to question the unequal relationship between employers and employees, those concerns rarely translate into a politically coherent awareness of class differences and class struggles. Militancy alone rarely accomplishes much beyond spontaneous bursts of discontent and may well be constrained by workplace particularism. As others have noted, bursts of “militant particularism” might fizzle just as quickly as they erupted (Williams 1989; Mann 1973; Harvey 1996). While strikes are certainly important and can go a long way toward galvanizing broader community support in defence of decent jobs, the challenge is to connect these seemingly particular or localized concerns to a broader political project that makes clear the relationship between individual and structural forms of oppression. As elucidated by Harvey (1996), the paradox of militant particularism is that it often develops amongst one group of workers at the expense of workers elsewhere, stifling a more universal working class, socialistic consciousness and movement across space or particular locales. Moderating expectations and seeking to arrive at an equal partnership with so-called responsible politicians and businesses in the hope that labour will gain a seat at the table has been proven time and again to be a fool’s errand.

As part of dealing with past failures, cupe Locals 79 and 416 must come to the realization that the existing way of doing things simply is not working. Although a product of historical differentiation among blue-collar/outside and white-collar/inside workers, cupe Locals 79 and 416 will need to seriously consider merging and doing away with what are otherwise arbitrary and eroding distinctions between its workers. Their independent and collective futures depend on it. Many of the positions of cupe Locals 79 and 416’s workers often intersect, are co-dependent and take place in the same location. Additionally, the terms of one Local’s contract often sets the terms of pattern bargaining for other locals, so they have a vested interest in one another just as they do with other unionized city workers (for example, library workers and Toronto Hydro). Confronting austerity means rethinking sectional divisions among unionized workers. As a public strategy, the issues of bargaining and keeping services and assets public should be at the centre of the unions’ demands. This message might help to reveal linkages between the users and producers of services in the context of eroding social services provisioning and the growing demands for new needs.

In 2012, for example, Toronto Public Library workers implemented such a strategy very successfully as their contracts expired around the same time as Locals 79 and 416. Half of cupe Local 4948’s 1,500 library workers are employed part time and three-quarters are women. The City was essentially trying to rollover the parameters of the 79/416 contract that sought to build on the prior elimination of a hundred positions and an additional 10 percent cut from libraries’ operating budgets. Local 4948 positions had been reduced by 17 percent since amalgamation, even though Toronto Public Library usage grew 29 percent. It is worth noting that, like Local 79 part-time workers, 4948 part-time members have difficulty securing full-time work and rarely qualify for benefits, and even though they must pay 40 percent of those benefits, only 22 percent qualify. A major sticking point throughout negotiations was the City’s attempt to remove a clause that made seniority a factor in assigning part-time shifts, as well as a clause that prohibited layoffs in the event of technological displacement or the elimination of positions. Having reached an impasse, on March 19, 2012, Local 4948 struck.

Unlike Locals 79 and 416 in 2009, library workers received widespread public support and media sympathy. The Writers’ Union of Canada organized a “read-in” and rally in front of the downtown Toronto Reference Library where they were joined by concerned residents, members of the community, parents and children. Prominent author and Torontonian Margaret Atwood spoke out in defence of striking library workers encouraging her more than 300,000 Twitter followers to join the picket lines, participate in rallies, contact local councillors and stand up for quality public services. The dispute highlighted deteriorating investments in public libraries as rally supporters spoke of why the services provided by city workers mattered to them. It also demonstrated that with the broad-based support of community members they could pressure the City to maintain adequate services. After eleven days, library workers and the City reached a new agreement. Under the terms of the four-year deal, full-time and part-time workers are protected from layoffs after eleven years (unlike Locals 79 and 416’s fifteen years) of seniority. Local 4948 members also received a lump sum payment of 1.5 percent in 2012, 0.225 in 2013, 1.75 in 2014 and 2.25 in 2015, as well as the creation of some new full-time positions. The successful struggles of Toronto library workers to protect both public services and the working conditions of their members speaks to the potential of broad-based labour–community mobilizations, creative strategies for garnering positive media attention and the importance of workers acting collectively to improve their lives. Local 79’s “Taking Care of Toronto” radio, internet, billboard and television ads are a good start, as is Local 416’s campaign for public services and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113’s (ttc workers) “Protecting What Matters” ads. But the limitations of (social) media campaigns need to be made clear. As the experiences of striking library workers showed, there are no substitutes for face-to-face interactions and civic engagement, and this needs to happen within the workplace and extend into the city’s neighbourhoods.

Of course, while there are lessons here that can be generalized to other city workers, part of the library workers’ success no doubt stems from the particular nature of their work as community-embedded service providers. For both Local 79 and 416, past experiences have shown garbage collection to be a lightning rod for public and media disdain. Although representative of a minority of workers on strike, it was without question the most visible and conflict-ridden source of frustration. Preventing Torontonians from disposing of their waste is also the most politically volatile and perhaps ineffective use of tactics. In addition to exposing what happened in other similar cases of contracting-out garbage collection — underbidding and then falling services and escalating costs (tea 2011) — Locals 79 and 416 need to tie the issue of waste management to clean and safe parks, public health and safe drinking water. Preventing communities that might otherwise be on the side of workers by prohibiting them from getting rid of their waste is not only a poor strategic move, it also reinforces the conservative portrayal of unionized workers as indifferent to the needs of the communities they serve. Furthermore, preventing people from disposing of their waste will do little to disrupt the functioning of the city’s day-to-day activities. As was obvious in 2009, despite thirty-nine days on strike, the City could have gone on for months filling waste yards, as they in fact were prepared to do for as long as six months in 2012.

Alongside the public’s obvious frustration, a majority of workers do not work in waste disposal, which meant that recreational staff, ems workers, long-term care providers, water, parks and road maintenance workers, animal services, childcare workers, public health nurses, water treatment and social workers with no experience with waste disposal, were all tasked with shutting down these facilities and devoting their energies in arguably futile ways. Like library workers did, Locals 79 and 416 will need to come up with creative strategies for demonstrating the value and importance of the services they provide to the city. In other words, with the input of community members, they will need to think about ways of utilizing workers before a strike so that a broader connection can be made between public services and privatization, and between civic workers and community life. In this sense, it is necessary to broaden the public’s perception beyond simply sanitation work and towards the vast spectrum of services that city workers provide.

Consider childcare, for example. As mayor, Rob Ford had been very clear in suggesting that Toronto’s 24,000 childcare spaces should be privatized. In 2014, Council moved to eliminate two thousand subsidized spaces that were previously cost-shared with the Province. Quality, affordable childcare remains one of the most sorely needed services in the city with nearly twenty thousand children in Toronto still wait-listed. What’s more, in 2011 the Chair of the Community Development and Recreation Committee, Giorgio Mammoliti, argued that the City should get out of the business of directly providing childcare and recreation services, preferring to contract-out or eliminate existing programs. With over 650 City-subsidized childcare centres in the city, Local 79 could have turned this into a debate about childcare and privatization, and engaged directly in a campaign with parents and caregivers to draw attention to the crisis in affordable child and afterschool recreation care.

Further, civic workers could canvas door-to-door taking stock of community concerns, and in turn informing community members of what they are doing to address them. While there will certainly be resistance from some residents and likely businesses, this could form part of an ongoing strategy for the union to develop the collective educational and political capacities of its members, in addition to deeper ties with social justice groups. Rather than blocking the disposal of waste during a labour dispute, Locals 79 and 416 could develop a public relations strategy that enables and extends the collection of waste through flying squads, say, for the elderly or persons with disabilities. Slowing down residents as they tried to get rid of their waste not only turned some allies into enemies, but assembly-line-like slowdowns allowed the City to manage the chaos in a coordinated fashion. Enabling the disposal of waste could aid in not simply building connections within the communities that are most effected by poor services but also in developing the competencies of union members as they challenge mischaracterizations of civic workers, inform the public of the issues involved in funding the city and politicize issues related to public services, unions, taxation, city revenue, expenditures and so forth.

In the context of some three decades of public services retrenchment, there is a wellspring of discontent among the public pertaining to a lack of affordable, accessible and high-quality public services. Yet, the perception is that these deficiencies in public services arise from civic workers’ indifference to budgetary challenges or community-identified needs, rather than some three decades of revenue erosion and workers’ ever-present challenges to do more with less. They will therefore also need to address issues of inadequacy and current shortcomings, including issues of bureaucracy, in the context of ever-declining funds to support these services and how they are delivered. In this sense, Locals 79 and 416 will need to adapt to the new climate of austerity bargaining by being more radical, not more concessionary. This is not only an organizational issue of how to respond, but also a question of trade union praxis and political culture. It is clear that top-down collective bargaining has been a recipe for disaster and, as the experiences of striking library workers in Toronto suggests, only an active and engaged membership with broad-based community support will be able to lead from below. There are, of course, no simple and immediate solutions to democratizing and rebuilding workers’ political capacities. Workers are not inherently radical or conservative but adapt to the structured conditions they encounter daily. Thus, politicization is always a process where, as Lenin is alleged to have observed, “sometimes decades pass and nothing happens, while other times weeks pass and decades happen.”

If Locals 79 and 416 are to mount an effective resistance against the drive to austerity, they will need to propose an effective political alternative to neoliberal urbanism. This will require democratizing and extending the union beyond its existing membership base by developing concrete strategies for engaging community mobilization on a year-round basis and not only during rounds of collective bargaining. Locals 79 and 416 should also be devoting additional funding to training their members to become community organizers who take greater heed of community-driven needs. Since they share related concerns and are equally influenced by municipal spending decisions, their long-term viability is dependent on crafting the collective capacities to develop deep linkages in the communities they serve and the need to come up with shared strategies and tactics. The turn in the social democratic Miller regime toward neoliberalism already demonstrated that the old clientalistic relations between union leaders and “progressive” city councillors are long gone. Even individually supportive councillors could do little to prevent the decline of city services, selling off of assets or attacks against workers. Rather, a much more engaged and working-class-infused strategy for Locals 79 and 416 is necessary if the focus is going to be on building active solidarity from the ground up. This means creating a bolder public image that mobilizes members and community activists and makes the connections between the services they provide and the communities they serve more visible.