It's going to be interesting seeing what happens when the nominally social democratic Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, has to negotiate new contracts with many of the City Labour Unions that supported him in the elections.

The below article suggests that it may be a bumpy road this year due to the city's budget crisis, but I think that the other unmentioned option is that despite the union leaders' tough talk is that in the end they will work will Miller to sell concession laden contracts to the workers.

City prepares to weather labour strife

The real question is, will rank and file workers buy it or pose a serious challenge to both the City bosses and their own union bureaucrats?

I don't think it's coincidence when the Toronto Star runs a story on a major CAW local leader opposing the no-striking allowed new Magna deal and references an open letter(pdf link) on the Local 222 website by the local president that "troubles" Buzz as "In all my years as head of the CAW, this has never happened to me where a major leader in the union has done this."

Then directly below that story the Star runs an article on how Magna's main corporate competitor is nipping at their heels.

CAW shelves right to strike

Employees at Magna International who vote to join the Canadian Auto Workers won't have the right to strike under a historic labour relations deal.

In a dramatic change regarding fundamental labour rights, the CAW confirmed yesterday it has agreed to shelve the key strike provision in efforts to build a new management-union relationship at Magna, the country's biggest auto parts maker.

I can't even put into words how angry this makes me, fortunetly A very nice rant by another blogger was already written.