…not with a bang but a fingers-crossed (tentative) deal — and the sound
of 2.5 million residents muttering to themselves something along the
lines of: “About goddamn time.”
Thirty-six
days into the biggest sanitation inconvenience since, well, the last
time that CUPE went on strike and held the city hostage to its own
garbage, it looks like an all-night bargaining session and CUPE 416
president Mark Ferguson’s tantrum-threatening tactics means this whole garbage strike mess will soon be over.
Rewind to last Friday afternoon, where the word of the day in Mayor David Miller’s
press release was “urgency.” It read: “I have stated repeatedly over
the past several weeks that the unions needed to bring a sense of
urgency to the bargaining table and get on with reaching an agreement …
The City has been and remains fully prepared to bargain 24 hours a day
to reach an agreement that is fair to our workers and affordable to
Torontonians.”
Two days and one long night later, the news wires
are abuzz with word that the unions and the city have a preliminary
deal in pace to end the worker’s strike.
But where was this
urgency — from both sides — two, even three weeks ago when we all
started seriously considering (and eventually caving to) those $5 per bag pick-up postings on Craigslist?
Mired in a clash between self-entitled hubris seemingly ignorant of
economic reality (CUPE) and face-saving diffidence wracked with
inconsistent bargaining conditions (the Mayor), that’s where.
Of
course, we’re not prepared to disclose full opinion on this settlement
until we see what the agreement entails. Once the details are out, we
may just want to take our month-festering trash and deliver it to the
appropriate people instead of waiting by the curb to give the returning
workers a round of sarcastic applause.