Strike could last months, city official says

City, union making no progress toward settlement, spokesman says
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun

Vancouver city officials say a simmering summer strike by three civic unions could last for months.
Saying a new proposal from the union representing striking library workers "is going in the wrong direction," city spokesman Jerry Dobrovolny said the public should brace for the strike, which began more than a month ago, to continue much longer.
"Typical city strikes tend to be about six to eight weeks," he said. "While I can't speculate on how long this one will now last, I can say that this one clearly isn't typical. I would say it is going to be a long one."
Dobrovolny's comments followed a meeting Monday with The Vancouver Sun's editorial board.
During the meeting, he accused the unions representing 6,000 striking inside, outside and library workers of engaging in a "larger political agenda," a comment a union official later dismissed as "rubbish."
Dobrovolny said the city offer essentially matches five-year contracts recently signed with 10 other municipalities, apart from some specific issues peculiar to each union.
Dobrovolny said no new talks are scheduled, and the city has no idea how it is going to resolve the dispute, which is actually three separate strikes, the longest of which is now in its 33rd day.
He said striking workers now appear to be trying to put new demands on the table, something that "takes the two sides in different directions."
For example, he said, library workers made significant new demands in a proposal opened by city negotiators on the weekend, and a statement on the outside workers' website warns that "the longer this strike goes on, our demands and costs to the employer will go up."
But the presidents of all three striking locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said Monday afternoon they are not making new demands and in fact are generally happy with the standard set in the other five-year municipal agreements.
Where they disagree is on issues that specifically affect their unions, they said.
The city has offered the inside and outside workers a five-year contract with raises totalling 16.5 per cent, while the library workers have been offered 17.5 per cent. Dobrovolny said the difference accounts for the fact the first two unions have a number of additional costly benefit demands on the table.
But he said city negotiators were "dumbfounded" on the weekend when they opened a counterproposal from Local 391, which represents the city's 785 striking library workers.
In addition to a five-year, 17.5-per-cent pay raise, the union also wants collective improvements to pay equity and job evaluations of another nine per cent, and another 4.25 per cent for 100 librarians.
"We are absolutely baffled," he said. "They increased their demands significantly. We frankly don't know what the issue is."
Local 391 chief negotiator Ed Dickson said the union's counter-proposal, made Friday, was virtually the same as its previous position, but for the first time put figures to the pay equity and job evaluation demands. The cost would be about $1 million over the five years, which he said the library has already saved because of the strike.
Local 391 president Alex Youngberg said library workers are predominantly women who are paid less than male counterparts with the same education.
"We have been trying to fight this for 30 years, and all we have been asking is for a basic start," she said, adding other accepted municipal contracts have included similar pay equity proposals.
Mike Jackson, acting president of CUPE Local 1004, which represents the city's 1,800 outside workers, said the union had already made several verbal concessions to the city that should help restart negotiations. But he said members remain concerned about whistleblower protection and improvements to dental and eyecare plans.
As for Dobrovolny's allegation that a statement on the outside workers' website indicated they would be demanding more the longer the strike went on, Jackson said it referred only to the standard union demand for a signing bonus for prolonged strikes.
Dobrovolny did not allege that the city's 3,500 inside workers, represented by CUPE Local 15, were putting more demands on the table.
In fact, said Local 15 president Paul Faoro, the city is continuing to demand several key concessions from the union, including weakening job security language that inside workers turned down before the strike. None of the new municipal contracts contain those concessions, he said.
"We have said consistently that we are prepared to bargain," Faoro said. "But with the city still pushing concessions that our members turned down four weeks ago, this is not going anywhere. They [the city] need to get off that."
Faoro, like the other presidents, said the city could get a settlement by the weekend if it is prepared to bargain.
But Dobrovolny said the city believes the unions are trying to prolong the strikes in order to destabilize the Greater Vancouver Regional District's labour relations bureau, of which the city is a member. The bureau was set up in the 1960s to collectively bargain for member municipalities, which Dobrovolny said had been "whipsawed" for years by unions when negotiating on their own.
But in recent years, several municipalities, including Richmond, opted out and began negotiating contracts themselves.
That, Dobrovolny said, is the main reason why the city's original 39-month, 9.5-per-cent offer was abandoned after Richmond last month signed a five-year deal of 17.5 per cent. Since then, many other municipalities, including North Vancouver District, which was struck the same week as Vancouver, have settled.
Faoro called Dobrovolny's idea "rubbish."
"With the amount of money my union is paying out on benefits and strike pay, if there was a larger political agenda we would have settled the contract and dumped that money into the next municipal election," he said. "The last thing I am going to do is keep my people out for some political agenda."

© Vancouver Sun 2007