(Whitby, ON) – Approximately 300 Town of Whitby municipal workers may be on strike as of 12:01am Saturday, October 14, over scheduling and hours, says CUPE Local 53.
“The Employer has made it clear that what they want is full and complete unilateral control over everyone’s scheduling, ensuring that we’re going the gold standard to the weakest in the municipal sector in the province,” said Rob Radford, President of CUPE Local 53, representing the roughly 300 unit 2 members facing a potential strike or lockout. “We tried to work with them. We proposed some trade-offs and we requested another day to bargain. The Employer rejected these proposals. Now we’re headed towards a completely avoidable strike or lockout.”
As of late negotiations between the employer and the workers broke down due to disagreement over concessions. The employer, says Radford, wants to force an indefinite number of temporary assignments on members; and want shift schedules where workers would be made available over a greater period of time, which could mean compressed work weeks, and rotating shifts.
“We’ve been clear that the flexibility in scheduling they’re calling for means little more than chaos for us as workers,” said Radford. “We’ve pushed back against these concessions with very reasonable counter-proposals. Instead of listening, the Employer destroying decades of successful bargaining and collaborative work in one round of negotiations by being, ironically, completely inflexible.”
“We want to avoid a strike so we can continue to deliver the services residents rely on but, if we need to hit the picket lines, we will.”
Picket lines will be set up at: Town hall 575 Rossland road east; Iroquois Park Sports Center 500 Victoria street west; and 333 McKinney drive.
-30-
For more information, contact:
Daniel Tseghay
Communications Representative, CUPE
[email protected] | 647-220-9739
