Pickets Going Up

Vancouver Sun - July 20, 2007

The city's outside workers have jumped the gun on their strike this morning and immediately ended garbage collection.

The union representing the workers, [Canadian Union of Public Employees] Local 1004, said that pickets will go up at noontime.

The move follows a vote by civic inside workers late Thursday to reject what the City of Vancouver called its "final offer" by 89 per cent. The union said it would issue a 72-hour strike notice this morning.

"We're not surprised" by the results, Paul Faoro, president of CUPE, Local 15, which represents the 2,500 inside workers, said in a news release.

"It shows the degree to which civic workers are aghast at the City of Vancouver and Bureau's total refusal to engage in legitimate bargaining and sends a clear message to the city that they need to get back to the bargaining table."

The union is calling on the city to avert an escalating region-wide strike by going back to the table to negotiate and have booked their meeting rooms at 545 West 10th Avenue at 10:30 a.m. for that purpose.

"We are always ready to negotiate," said Faoro in the statement.

Limited job action began among Vancouver's outside workers started Thursday, as CUPE, Local 1004 members launched an overtime ban and began short-term walkouts at certain worksites.

Employees at the waste transfer station in south Vancouver and the works yard at Stanley Park were among the first to walk out after Thursday morning's strike notice came due, and union representatives said they expect more walkouts today.

Workers with the District of North Vancouver and its recreation commission also began job action Thursday with overtime bans and work-to-rule campaigns.

In an interview Thursday, Mayor Sam Sullivan said he's asked the city manager to implement a contingency plan for services the city will be able to deliver during a full-scale strike.

At the top of the list of services the city will maintain are police and fire services, emergency street and sewer work and essential social services such as the Gathering Place and Carnegie Centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

"I'm especially concerned about social housing," Sullivan said, adding city-operated residences will stay open as well.

Sullivan said he wants to ensure the city's various summer festivals and arts offerings won't take a serious hit because of a strike, and the city will work to ensure the Playhouse theatre stays open, and that events such [as] the Pride Parade and the HSBC Celebration of Light continue.

"I think the arts are in fact an essential part of our city. I'm not interested in seeing that part of our society going wanting in this situation."

But he said the Orpheum Theatre will likely close, raising questions about whether the [Bryan] Adams and Bobby McFerrin shows scheduled at the end of the month will have to be cancelled.

Among the priority services the city will work to maintain are street-use permits, parking enforcement, revenue services and grant payments, and parking enforcement and collections.

However, along with residential garbage collection and sewer, street and water main construction, the services not expected to continue during a strike include the handling of new building permit applications.

On Thursday, Tony Liu of Vancouver-based Copa Development Corp. said developers have been rushing to get approvals for building permits at Vancouver city hall, paying extra charges for city staff to process paperwork on overtime, so they can avoid being shut down if there's a strike.

"The guys waiting for permits, they're stuck [if there is a strike]," Liu said, "because there's nothing you can do until [municipal employees] come back."

Contractors who have begun construction on buildings can work around striking city building inspectors by hiring professional engineers to certify that their work meets building-code standards, but that comes with steep additional costs.

Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association, said an interruption in new building starts will play serious havoc with scheduling in Greater Vancouver's busy construction sector.

Sullivan said that despite service reductions, the city has done everything it can to ensure construction on Olympic-related projects such as the Canada Line, the convention centre expansion and the athletes' village remains on schedule.

But he said he is concerned that a long strike would impede the city's plans to improve other aspects of the city before 2010.

"There's a cascading effect. One thing affects 10 other things. It will make the efforts to prepare our city in every way for the world much more difficult."

Sullivan said a lack of residential garbage pickup could actually have a positive effect. "In past strikes I've lived through, many people have become aware of their own wasteful behaviours," he said.

"The amount of waste produced per citizen is way higher than it needs to be and now's the time for people to implement all of the things they always thought they should do and hadn't got around to."

Sullivan said some additional services will continue, but at a reduced capacity. These include services related to certain special events, park washrooms, street litter can collection, permit applications and new animal control licence applications.

He asked for patience and cooperation from the public. "Everyone is going to have to pitch in to make sure that they are not causing more problems than they have to. We have a very limited staff that are going to be going full-out to maintain as many services as possible."

CUPE Local 15's collective agreement expired over six months ago. Delta civic workers represented by CUPE Local 454 have also recently voted down a final offer vote.