The 6,800 members of Local 416 representing outside workers on garbage collection, parks and recreation sites, and the ferries in Toronto harbor had been on strike for 16 days. The 18,000 inside workers in Local 79 composed mostly of clerical and administrative staff and inspectors had been on strike for just one week.

At one Local 416 picketing station three days before the end of the strike , a sanitation worker said Toronto mayor Melvin Lastman "thinks after 10 days we’re starving and we’ll want to go back, but these are our jobs." Asked about back-to-work legislation, he said, "They’re doing this because we’ve been out for a while, but I’m not in favor if it means selling ourselves out."

The main issue in the strike for both locals was job security, given the intention of the city to contract out and privatize many of their jobs. The city’s last offer was that the job of any permanent worker with less than 10 years seniority as of July 1, 2002, could be contracted out.

Some 14,000 of the 25,000 city workers in CUPE are temporary and have no security whatsoever. Some workers have been "temporary" workers for 15 years.

Capitalist politicians hammered on the theme that the strikers wanted "jobs for life" and that under capitalism, no one has a job for life.

Union officials countered that all they were seeking was the same job protection in the recently signed contracts between the city of Toronto and its police officers and transit workers. They also argued a large majority of municipal workers across Canada have equal or better job protection compared with what they were seeking.

The back-to-work legislation was held up for a day when the New Democratic Party (NDP) objected to a clause that allowed the Conservative government to name the arbitrator who will determine the final contract in a binding decision. They threatened to use procedural barriers to hold up the legislation for up to two weeks. The final law has a list of three individuals acceptable to all three parties in the legislature--the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP that the Ontario government can choose from.  
 
 
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