So it’s come to this? A strike over sick pay. Could Miller have asked for anything more?
Talks are ongoing, but for those on the right wing of council hoping for a settlement at the 11th hour with significant concessions for city workers attached, news of a strike this morning is bad news politically.
By not buckling to the union’s demands, the mayor looks, well, like he’s not going to be pushed around, despite all those nice things he typically has to say about the value of well-paid public services.
Most residents probably don’t have that much sympathy for city workers able to pocket a few thousand in for untaken sick days after they retire. But the mayor can’t risk this stoppage going on for too long.
Word on the street is that the union is just biding its time, keeping talks going for maybe a few days to lower the boom just before those Pride festivities set for this coming weekend. The Pride flag raising had to be cancelled this morning because of the work stoppage. And how long will the good folks in suburbia the mayor’s managed to win over tolerate those kids programs being closed?
If the threat of garbage from the big party flying around our streets isn’t enough to push management into a deal, maybe pickets at Pride, the city’s single biggest tourism event of the summer, will.
Organizers of the big bash, our single biggest tourism attraction, may already be discussing plans with the city to bring in private garbage collectors to deal with post-hangover refuse. They can move at a moment’s notice. But there’s no guarantee the union won’t try to block them. Pickets have already been set up at city transfer stations. Will the mayor chance calling in those private haulers to deal with garbage piling up on the street should the strike drag on?
Judging by the references to the city’s budget woes in his statement to the assembled media early this morning, the mayor’s more poised now than at any other point in his political career to pick a fight with city unions. Better to anger a few thousand workers than go to the polls in 2010 with the stink of a protracted strike still lingering in the nostrils of a testy electorate. This thing may be about to get a whole lot uglier.
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