Labour negotiations can be tricky in most situations, but in Burnaby they can be especially tricky.
Take the current labour dispute between the City of Burnaby and the city’s firefighters.
The firefighters have been without a collective agreement for quite some time, and depending upon who you ask, it’s either the city’s deliberate fault, or the firefighters’ fault.
The firefighters say the city council and mayor are deliberately stalling negotiations between city staff and the union. The city, of course, denies this and says the firefighters’ union delayed bargaining, letting the contract sit in limbo.
At this point in time both parties in the dispute have agreed on an arbitrator and binding arbitration. But the city wants two days reserved, while the firefighters say it will just take a day.
Both parties haven’t disclosed a lot of details about the proposals, but what has been reported is tantalizing. Apparently no one is expecting much more (or less) in wages than the other 33 fire departments in the province received. But, apparently, the city wants its firefighters to give up some “things” in exchange for that raise.
What exactly those “things” are, no one is saying. Are these things that city firefighters already have, or are they “things” that the firefighters have on their current bargaining wish list?
Critics of city council have often pointed out the cozy relationship between the city’s political leaders and the city’s unions. The BCA/NDP clearly owes a lot of its political success to labour support. And critics have also rightly questioned what the union supporters receive or expect to receive for that support.
The firefighters’ union’s previous relationship with the political structure was clearly supportive. And city hall, in the past, has appreciated that support.
But now a rift has appeared, and it’s an ugly one.
The firefighters appeared at city council Monday night wearing yellow T-shirts that read “We support those who support us.”
We assume that message was meant for the city’s political leaders who have benefited from the union’s support in the past: a rather blunt reminder that if the city treats them unfairly, the union will not support them in the future.
As city Coun. Paul McDonell says, “Sometimes it’s like marriage. You agree when you have a dispute and sometimes you have to go to counselling (arbitration).”
The problem with this marital counselling is that both parties really can’t afford a divorce.
