TORONTO - Public transit is now an essential service in Canada's most populous city under a new law that bans strikes and lockouts by Toronto Transit Commission workers.
The government bill passed Wednesday in the Ontario legislature by a vote of 68-9, just a day before the first labour contracts with transit workers were set to expire.
The move infuriated labour leaders, including Bob Kinnear, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents nearly 10,000 TTC operations and maintenance workers.
He derided Premier Dalton McGuinty as a "lapdog" to "union-hating, right wing" Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who promised to ban TTC strikes during last year's election campaign. The move was supported by city council three months ago.
McGuinty, who was in Michigan, didn't cast a final vote on the bill. But that didn't stop Kinnear from accusing the absent premier of stripping workers of their rights to save a few Liberal seats in the fall election.
"They'd better not think that they can push us around because we do not have the right to strike," Kinnear said outside the legislative chamber.
"We are just making it very clear that if we're pushed into a corner, we will come out swinging."
Kinnear bristled when reporters sought to clarify his comments and whether he was hinting at some kind of job action.
"We're not looking for conflict," he said.
"We're going to continue to try and get an agreement, and if we're not, we'll deal with those issues at the time that they arise," he added.
Labour Minister Charles Sousa said he values TTC workers, but the law was needed to avoid disruptive strikes that cripple the city.
"This is about the million-and-a-half people and the riders who depend on the TTC," he said.
"Toronto is unique in its size and scope, and it's the third largest transportation system in North America."
The New Democrats, the only party to vote against the bill, called it a "full-frontal attack" on labour, similar to Republican-led efforts to scrap worker's rights in Wisconsin.
"This isn't the Ford model, it's the Wisconsin model," longtime New Democrat Peter Kormos told the legislature. "And that is a very dangerous thing."
The battle to strip public workers of most collective bargaining rights in a state facing a US$3.6-billion shortfall has turned into one of the nastiest and most prolonged political fights Wisconsin has ever seen.
At one point, Democratic state senators fled to a neighbouring state and as many as 80,000 people protested at the capitol building.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath wouldn't go that far, but warned the strike ban will create more strife and increase costs.
"I think the costs are going to go up with those arbitrated decisions, and I think that's going to have an impact on services," she said.
Ontario's Liberals are already under fire from labour groups for trying -- not very successfully -- to freeze the wages of about one million public sector workers to help trim its $16.3-billion deficit.
Tuesday's budget included plans to trim another 1,500 civil service jobs and opened the door to privatizing some government services.
McGuinty doesn't appear to be afraid of taking on another powerful union in an election year, believing there are more votes up for grabs from people who are inconvenienced by transit strikes than from transit workers.
In 2008, TTC workers walked off the job only hours after rejecting a tentative deal, despite Kinnear's promise to give 48 hours notice of any job action.
The sudden strike drew the ire of many Torontonians who were left stranded, and forced the province to pass emergency back-to-work legislation.
The new law would put the TTC workers in the same category as police and firefighters for labour contracts, with a built-in review of the essential service designation after five years.
But Kinnear said the new law could have a ripple effect across the province, with other municipalities demanding that their transit systems be declared essential.
