A union that represents more than 20,000 municipal workers is calling on the city to address the instability facing part-time employees by guaranteeing them a minimum number of hours per week.

CUPE 79, which represents the city’s inside workers, held a press conference at city hall on Wednesday morning to “bring awareness to the lack of stability in some of the city’s jobs.”

The press conference comes more than two weeks after CUPE 79 announced its members had given it a strike mandate, should ongoing contract negotiations with the city falter. CUPE 416, which represents the city’s outside workers, has also voted in favour of a potential strike.

Both unions have been without a contract since Dec. 31.

“The city would have us believe that all city jobs are secure with access to good benefits and that they are stable but over half of our members are either full-time temporary or indeed part-time workers and the lack of stability in their jobs affects the people who receive services in Toronto’s communities,” CUPE 79 President Tim Maguire told reporters on Wednesday. “Today is about bringing light to the condition that part-time workers at the city work under. We think the city can be a model employer in providing more stable employment.”

Maguire said that the lack of stability in many part-time city jobs has had an adverse effect on the work and home lives of CUPE 79 members, many of whom have to pick up shifts at different offices across the city just to get by.

Though Maguire said that many part-time employees often have 24/7 availability a “few days a week or even all week,” he pointed out that the city gives those workers “zero commitment in return.”

That commitment, Maguire said, is all his union is asking for.

“We are just talking about a minimum commitment to hours of work,” he said. “The city hires X number of part-time workers and it is just a question of how they distribute and organize those hours. They can organize those hours so they give their workers stability and there ought not to be a huge financial impact from that.”

Workers speak out

During Wednesday’s press conference a number of part-time city workers for the City of Toronto were given an opportunity to speak about the unstable nature of their employment and the challenges that presents.

One of those workers, who is a camp coordinator and dance instructor in the city’s recreation department, said she sometimes has to “hop from centre to centre” just to get close to full time hours.

Another, who is an employee of the city’s 311 call centre, said she sometimes feels like she is “living in limbo.”

“A little over a year ago my hours went from consistently being about 30 a week to 10 and since then they have just been in waves. Week to week I just don’t know how many hours I may get,” she said. “You could literally get 25 hours one week and then you maybe get 10 (the next week) and if it is 10 you are just hoping for call-in work.”

Maguire said that companies in the private sector are increasingly offering part-time employees a set number of hours; however he said that the city is falling behind.

The CUPE 79 president said the solution isn’t necessarily giving part-time workers full-time jobs, though he did point out that last year the city budgeted for 2,000 to 2,500 positions that it didn’t actually fill.

“It is about distribution and it is about making sure that there is a minimum commitment to our workers,” he said.