Last week, the City misled the public by releasing manipulative wage proposal details.
It’s time to set the record straight.
Why do we contend that the City’s 3.95%, 3.9%, 3.8% and 3% offer is not enough?
Under John Tory, Local 79 members saw years of wage increases below the rate of inflation, with an average annual wage increase of only 1.13% over the past six years. Since the beginning of the pandemic, prices in Canada shot up more than 18% but Local 79 members’ wages grew by a compounded 6.4%, resulting in frontline workers experiencing an effective 12% wage cut.
At the same time, City Manager Paul Johnson saw his salary jump 28% to $417,216 in a single year (2022-2023), earning him the spot as the highest paid municipal Chief Administrative Officer in the Province. This begs the question: why won’t they also pay Nurses, Caseworkers, Support Assistants, Food Service Workers and all City occupations the highest rates in the province?
Their lack of respect for negotiations has been clear throughout this process:
- City Manager Paul Johnson and Director of Labour Relations Sean Milloy have not shown up to the bargaining table—not even once.
- Johnson, who earns nearly half a million dollars, told the media that the provincial minimum wage is “sufficient” in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
- The City misled the public last Friday by releasing manipulative wage proposal details:
- They claimed they need “stability” by forcing us into a four-year contract—after giving transit workers a three-year deal.
- They insisted we should settle for one of the lowest deals offered to public sector workers, instead of the better agreements reached with transit, police, and firefighters.
- The City’s email to employees, their “Bargaining Update” posted on their website and in their press conference made no mention of the fact that their proposal includes a concession that requires all employees pay 10% of the monthly health benefit premium. For family health and dental coverage, a full time employee would pay $862.15 per year.
- After two and a half months of bargaining the City has yet to put anything in writing that includes special wage adjustments for certain occupations to bring them up to market levels. In fact, they have stated that they will not disclose their offer until we agree to their low ball across the board wage increases. If the City is serious about solving the retention and recruitment crisis they must turn their offers of “discussion” into official proposals in writing.
Instead of meaningfully negotiating, the City chooses to publish half truths. We corrected their “Bargaining Update”. Click here to see our corrected version.
