Chow about to face her biggest test yet

Big number: 30,735, the number of city of Toronto workers belonging to CUPE Local 79, CUPE 416 and associated bargaining units whose contracts all expire at the end of this year.

- MATT ELLIOTT

Even if Mayor Olivia Chow is sympathetic to the demands of city employees, she will need to balance that with the fact that the city is broke, Matt Elliott writes.

The TTC is still running this week after the TTC and ATU Local 113 managed to come to a last-minute framework for a settlement Thursday night, but municipal labour issues are still looming - and they're serious enough that they could send Olivia Chow's mayoralty off the rails.

Contracts for the two major city hall unions CUPE Local 79, representing workers who traditionally do their jobs inside, and CUPE Local 416, the outside workers plus three associated bargaining units are set to expire simultaneously at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31 this year. It could make for a very unhappy new year.

Collectively, those unions represent 30,735 workers, or about 77 per cent of Toronto's city hall workforce. (Employees of city agencies, like the TTC or the Toronto police, are accounted for separately.) They do jobs like cutting the grass in parks, collecting garbage, processing permits, helping the homeless, implementing public health strategies and teaching swimming lessons. And they could all be off the job early next year.

Compounding the problem for Chow is the fact that the unions have a darn good reason to push negotiations to the brink - and maybe past it.