City of Toronto workers delivered 8,000 petitions to the city’s budget committee in the latest move by CUPE Local 79 (CUPE79) members to advocate for better wages, staffing and workplace safety as they bargain for a new collective agreement.
The stacks of petitions were delivered on Friday morning during a meeting of the city’s budget committee, to the office of committee chair Coun. Shelley Carroll.
Signed by workers, each petition highlighted the need for increased wages at pace with inflation and called for an end to unsafe and understaffed workplaces, according to a press release from CUPE Local 79.
“The City of Toronto is in a crisis of retention and recruitment. Our staff are stretched thin and are barely making ends meet,” said president of CUPE Local 79 Nas Yadollahi in the release.
“Nearly 12,000 workers in recreation are paid minimum wage by the country’s largest municipal employer.”
CUPE79’s 30,000 members work for the City of Toronto in areas like public health, employment and social services, ambulance dispatch, recreation programming, shelters and much more.
This morning, CUPE Local 79 members delivered 8,000+ petitions to Councillor Shelley Carroll at the final Budget Committee meeting.
— CUPE Local 79 (@cupelocal79) January 24, 2025
Workers are calling for fair, inflation-adjusted wages, safe staffing levels & equity for part-time workers. pic.twitter.com/oGyqwPdqvP
Earlier this week, over 90 per cent of members voted in favour of a strike mandate. The vote potentially sets the stage for workers to walk off the job if negotiations with the city remain stalled.
Their collective agreement with the City of Toronto expired on Dec. 31, 2024, and they have been at the bargaining table with the city since the end of November.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Yadollahi told reporters that better wages and more benefits for these workers are the union’s key demands.
She said a “majority” of employees make less than $26 per hour, which is considered the minimum hourly wage a person must earn in order to cover basic necessities in Toronto, according to the Ontario Living Wage Network.
She also noted that high vacancy rates and low employee retention plague a number of city services, particularly in long-term care. There are over 500 vacant positions across the city’s long-term care homes, meaning that, in some cases, there’s a ratio of one nurse for every 60 residents, Yadollahi said.
City spokesperson Laura McQuillan wrote in a previous email to TorontoToday that the city is bargaining in “good faith” with CUPE79.
“The City’s bargaining team has been and continues to be onsite at the bargaining centre and available seven days a week to work toward a resolution with Local 79's bargaining team,” McQuillan wrote. “We have encouraged them to return to the table sooner and make more dates available for constructive bargaining.”
The union’s strike mandate comes shortly after the City of Toronto released its 2025 budget proposal, which includes $300 million earmarked for increased costs that may arise from new union agreements.
With files from Kathryn Mannie.
