Results tagged “cupe”

Well, not really. It will live on in political grandstanding and pre-election speeches and in all manner of rhetorical asides for months to come. But, in real, day-to-day terms, it has come to a merciful end. By two 21–17 votes, after a day-long debate, City Council has just approved contracts with CUPE locals 79 and 416.

It's not enough to have Toronto amass into a literal garbage dump or to bar kids from City-run pools and daycares—now they've stolen the rainbow from the sky.

The city has released its contingency plan in preparation for a possible walkout by municipal workers belonging to CUPE Local 79 and TCEU Local 416 at 12:01 a.m. Monday. If the strike happens, don’t plan on a ferry ride to Toronto Island, a visit to a city-operated museum, leaving your children at city-run daycares, or processing new applications for municipal permits. Unless you live in an apartment building or Etobicoke, there will be no garbage collection—the city will operate two transfer centres at all hours, with limited service at five others (please resist the temptation to dump your trash in a ravine or Rouge Park). With any luck, we won’t end up in a situation like the citizens of Windsor, where a municipal strike is now in its ninth week.

CUPE Ontario's university workers are now officially like the awkward kid no one wants to play with at recess. As we reported earlier, that branch of the union passed a motion a few days ago calling for an academic boycott "aimed at Ontario universities and any institutional connections pertaining to research that help the military of the state of Israel." Today, in letters to both the National Post and the Globe and Mail, and in a statement on the union's homepage, CUPE's president Paul Moist did his best to distance the national organization from that move, saying that "The views expressed in the resolution are those of a small number of CUPE Ontario members. The resolution does not represent CUPE National policy." This is the second time in two months Moist has had to publicly chastise CUPE Ontario, currently operating under the contentious leadership of Sid Ryan: an earlier version of the boycott came in for even harsher criticism, with Moist saying that it would have violated CUPE's own anti-discrimination standards. No word on whether Ryan has also been uninvited to Moist's birthday party.

In a startling and uncharacteristic move, CUPE Ontario has done something controversial. Even more unexpectedly, they've gone about it in controversial fashion.

This stupid. [via BlogUT]