Strike Is All About Olympics

Richmond settled. Burnaby is probably going to do it. Why can't Vancouver sit down and work something out with its workers? The question hangs in the increasingly smelly air.

So do a few more, like: Does Vancouver City Hall really think the strike is a serious money saver? And is the union really hanging tight for a contract term that enables it to hold the city hostage just before the Olympics?

Let's start with the strike-creates-city-slush-fund theory. Vision Vancouver sources point out that the city saved as much as $1.3 million during the civic strike of 2000. Okay, but this time, the city will be losing big bucks because it can't rent out its facilities during the high season of summer. And why risk the feel-good run-up to the Olympics, a billion-dollar extravaganza, for a mere million or two? Perhaps, as union sources say, because in those preparations for the Olympics, VANOC and the city want far more flexibility to hire new faces at whatever wages it chooses, which will mean giving some new hires better benefits than current employees. That's what's in the city's "final offer," and CUPE isn't willing to go there.

What about Mayor Sullivan's claim that timing is everything, that labour insists on contracts that end just before the Games, giving it the power to shut down the party? A less Machiavellian reading might be that bills for the Olympics will tend to come due well after the Games are over, so unions would prefer to be bargaining before all those debts are payable. In any event, Sullivan's alarming scenario seemed less credible when CUPE leaders stated they'd be happy with a four-year deal. Which Sullivan promptly shot down because, he said, then they'd be negotiating at election time.

More evidence that unions aren't playing hard ball with the Olympics arrived yesterday afternoon, with news that Richmond, home of the fancy skating oval, had worked out a tentative agreement with its 1,250 civic workers. The deal, already approved by council, will be ratified by CUPE workers today and tomorrow.

"This agreement shows that where there is a will to bargain, there is a way to a contract," said Robin Jones, CUPE national representative and chief negotiator for the workers, in a press release. "We are an Olympic host city, we have Olympic venues ... this agreement shines a light on what is possible when there is a desire by the employer to also bargain a fair agreement."

No details of the agreement will be disclosed until Richmond CUPE members have had a chance to vote on the deal, the press release said.

In Burnaby yesterday evening, meanwhile, Mayor Derek Corrigan was sighing relief on CKNW because his city workers were on the job to staunch the blown oil pipe before a small catastrophe could become a major disaster. He praised the skill of his city's workers fulsomely as he predicted negotiations would produce an agreement rather than a strike in Burnaby.

You have to wonder how the folks running Vancouver look to the International Olympics Committee in Geneva, as they read about the negotiating table abandoned by City Hall, and the mess and misery predicted to pile up in the coming weeks, maybe months.

Related Tyee stories:

• If Strike Hits Cities, It'll Stink
  Trash pick-up, festivals, Olympics prep and economy will suffer.
• As Pipelines Expand, So Do Fears of Clearcuts, Spills
  Affected communities want more say.
• More Homeless than Athletes in 2010 (Series)