Bargaining talks between the Toronto Parking Authority and its workers will resume today in the wake of a vote favouring strike action should a new collective agreement not be reached.
The workers, who are members of Local 416 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE 416), voted 98.5 per cent in favour of giving their bargaining committee a mandate to take strike action on Monday.
“Our members were nearly unanimous – they refuse to be intimidated into accepting a contract that degrades the quality of jobs this community depends on,” CUPE 416 Parking Authority Unit Chairperson Sav Daskalakis said in a press release issued at the time. “The Parking Authority generates significant revenues for its owner, the City of Toronto. The city should be under no illusions that the staff who help the authority fulfil its important role should have to agree to poorer working conditions, less stable, employment while watching their wages eroded by inflation for the next four years.”
According to CUPE Local 416, negotiations between the union and the Toronto Parking Authority previously came to an “abrupt end” earlier this month after the TPA refused to withdraw demands for a four-year wage freeze as well as “deep concessions to employee benefits and job security.”
The union has been without a collective agreement since earlier this year.
