Smells Like A New Mayor

Toronto's garbage workers are on strike. There are some, namely Marcus Gee, think this is an opportunity for Mayor Miller to guarantee his re-election next year. I beg to differ. The problem for the Mayor and Marcus Gee's theory is that he can't win this strike. There are really only two potential outcomes here. The first is that the Mayor caves to the union's demands which would be politically disastrous. The second is that after the residents of Toronto begin investing in nose plugs, Dalton McGuinty takes the same step Ernie Eves made in 2002 and orders the garbage workers back to work and both sides to binding arbitration. I can't believe there's a length of time that would see the union's strike fund depleted enough to force the union's hand but would not require the premier to act to forestall a public health crisis. Public sentiment may not be with the union, but Miller is not going to be able to walk away from a negotiating table in victory. At best, he'll get a somewhat favourable ruling from an arbitrator but even that may be unlikely. As Kinsella and The Toronto Star note, the Mayor's bargaining position is undermined by Toronto city council's recent pay hike in this same wintry economic climate. At any rate, when's the last time there was significant media coverage of an arbitrator's decision weeks after a strike ended?