women hold up half the union

As many of you may know, the Toronto municipal workers are on strike. Most of what gets talked about is garbage -- where to put it and what to do with it once it is there. Yesterday, Antonia Zerbisias pointed to the gender politics of recent collective bargaining efforts in Toronto the good:

"Did you know that most city workers are women? Did you know that at least half of those are part-timers, who get no sick leave? Did you know that, while the city was relatively generous with male-dominated unions (the police, firefighters etc.), it is demanding all sorts of concessions from those female inside workers now on the picket lines? Did you know that the screw up is by the city which, when it gave SOME workers those controversial sick leaves in exchange for salary concessions, neglected to set aside funding to pay those sick days out?"

Antonia also linked to this video that I thought you might enjoy:

Antonia Zerbisias works for the Toronto Star where this happened on Monday. And this union-busting effort (see #6) is why I canceled my subscription to that paper in 2001.

And so it goes.