No one has a “job for life,” and Toronto's municipal employees are no different. In fact, 400 City of Toronto employees will soon lose their jobs due to contracting out.
Supervision and discipline are up to management, not the union – any City employee can be terminated if they don't do their job. What unions do provide is job security – assurance that employees who are doing their jobs won't be subject to arbitrary actions by the employer.
Protection against arbitrary action by the employer is a basic tenet of unionization. Protection against arbitrary action from either side is a basic tenet of contracts in general. Negotiated between two parties, they express mutual loyalty and reward years of service. This benefits the City as a service provider, and residents who rely on those services, just as much as workers who deliver them.
"Bumping?"
In the Toronto Sun on January 2nd, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday railed against “restrictive... 'terms and conditions'” in the City's contract with CUPE, insisting they “severely limit the city’s ability to make any changes” and “must be changed if the city is to be efficient and effective.” Holyday attributes this to a “bumping” process, which – the way he tells it – makes it impossible for the City to control staffing.
Terms and Conditions, Myths and Facts
Myth: A “bumping” provision in the collective agreement means the City can never get rid of employees.
Fact: The so-called bumping process only applies to full-time permanent workers, roughly half of City employees, and only when their job would be lost to privatization. The negotiated agreement lets an employee whose job is being contracted out to “bump” a less senior employee from a comparable position, if there isn't a vacant position for which s/he is qualified. It simply makes sure someone can't be let go without warning when there is still work to do.
Myth: The collective agreement means this bumping process takes three years.
Fact: If the City decides to abandon the contract and privatize a job, the union has three months to convince the City that privatizing isn't the way to go. If the deletion goes ahead, an employer/union redeployment committee identifies comparable jobs through which the employee can continue the service for which they were hired. The employee has three days to make a decision on a redeployment offer. That's it.
Myth: Bumping costs the City $10 million.
Fact: No, it doesn't. While there might be some administrative costs, the money spent on staff is money paid to employees who continue to perform needed work. , even if it's someone different doing them at the end of the day. Anyone bumped has the right to bump someone else, but remember: this only applies to work the City wants to privatize, not eliminate. No one just sits at home and collects a paycheque.
Myth: These are special restrictions that only Toronto workers get.
Fact: Restrictions on contracting out that would result in job loss are ordinary in municipalities across Ontario. A survey of 248 CUPE municipal agreements found that over 70% have similar restrictions; this includes Ontario's two other largest cities, Ottawa and Hamilton.
Other municipalities, big and small, which have agreed to such language include, Chatham-Kent, Lambton Shores, Parry Sound, Cobourg, Cambridge, Central Elgin, Ajax, Kitchener, Cochrane, North Bay, Cobalt and Pickering. Most Ontario hospital contracts include a similar clause as well.
The Short Version
Redeployment or job security language doesn't prevent the employer from contracting out, or adjusting service levels. It just prevents them from arbitrarily abandoning a collective agreement they themselves negotiated. Terms and conditions can be negotiated – getting rid of them entirely only makes sense if the City doesn't care whether their employees are experienced with the communities they serve.