elect Tim Fitz Maguire - Vice president - Executive steward, CUPE Local 79

Throughout my years in workplace and broader leadership roles at CUPE local 79, I decided to run in union elections after being encouraged by members in others in leadership to again seek office. Each time deciding whether to run, it has been about how I can be a service and contribute. So, when encouraged to run in this election I had to consider whether I would run at this stage of my career as a 36 year city of Toronto employee and 35 years of activism and leadership involvement CUPE 79, and central to that decision is in what way and in what position I could best be of service to the members of CUPE 79 given my experiences, training and education to date. 

Also, for the past few years, I had returned to post secondary education on a part-time basis while working full time, completing a Master of Laws (LLM) and a paralegal certificate, passed the Paralegal licensing exam, all parts of transition towards providing services as a Paralegal, Notary Public and potentially Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services. More information about this is in the other sections of this website.

However, given the above decision-making process, I have decided to pause the transition to Paralegal and once again seek re-election in CUPE 79 leadership. In this election, am offering for the position of Vice-President-Executive Steward as Independent candidate. 

The next sections offer more information I can contribute to leading on priorities affecting members and the services we provide and our rights.

Just last week, I was asked my thoughts on a question that has been the focus of growing debate in the labour movement on this important question for a generation, whether unions should focus on “Business unionism” or “Social” unionism. 

Business unionism is an approach which has focussed narrowly on workplace issues like wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions through traditional collective bargaining and enforcing collective agreements through grievance and arbitration procedures, while Social unionism, or “social justice unionism,” focusses on broader economic, political, and social justice issues (such as growing inequality human rights, homelessness housing, and climate change, attacks by employers and government on fundamental rights like collective bargaining, the right to strike, or freedom of speech, of association, of assembly and protest and international issues).

I believe unions must move more toward Social unionism labour and labour-community organizing to address these broader issues all of which are better fought in labour and labour-community coalitions rather than in isolation as local or one union on their own, while also ensuring that member-specific oriented services of collective bargaining and day-to-day services such as grievances, health and welfare services are maintained to the best of our ability. I would also argue that ensuring these services are better provided better enables unions 

I actually had put forward this direction in my platform when I offered for a third term as President in 2017. I understand that at that time, members decided to elect a new leadership team with a different perspective. However, this is still my view, and it’s the perspective I offer as I offer for Vice-President – Executive Steward. 

This next section provides more information and clarity on some of the priorities and commitments in my election flyer, and additional areas I would like to contribute to addressing.. 

Btw, the Maguire family motto is "Justice and Fortitude are Invincable" No wonder I subscribe to the view that "Union work is Social Justice  work"

This section provides more information and clarity on some of the priorities and commitments in my election flyer, and additional areas I would like to contribute to addressing:  

Health and Safety First

Fair Wages

Fighting for our rights to bargain & strike

Anti-Privatization campaignsm (Water, Ontario Works)

Continue Organizing

More timely grievance  hearings & resolution & Clearing the backlog of grievances

More transparency on finances & other matters, etc.. :

First, Health and Safety First! There must be a focus on enuring our members are safe from the rise of abuse and threats of violence as you perform your work duties, as members in Employment and Social Services (TESS) have recently experienced. 

There was also the death of a member of CUPE Local 79 last week, when last week when a City of Toronto traffic agent died after being struck by a dump truck while directing traffic in the city's east end, the investigation ongoing. 

My heart aches for their family, friends, co-workers, as someone who lost a brother in a preventable construction workplace tragedy at Billy Bishop Airport in 2018. For as long as I live, I will never forget getting the call from police as my brother' emergency contact, and having to make several calls to my extended family, passing on the news that we had lost our oldest brother. This visceral physical pain lasted for months. But, our family rallied, vowing to do whatever we could to prevent further tragedy, so I then represented my family in the Coroner's inquest, which produced recommendations, the core of which the Ontario government has ignored as it moves to end inquests on specific construction workplace deaths. I will Not Give Up This Fight! 

I hope this loss of life for this City worker is thoroughly investigated and recommendations made to ensure this doesn't happen again. NO-ONE should go to work and not come home to their families! 

Fair Wages: CUPE 79 has made progress at the bargainging table on general wage increases and wage adjustments for some classifcations at the bargaining table and since through Job Evaulation and other advocacy. These efforts should continue for other areas not yet acheived. In order the be able to bargain fair wages and other provisions we must be prepared to fight for our rights!

Fight for our rights:

In order to Fight for our rights, to bargain, strike and protest, we need to be willing to engage in political action in coalition with labour and community. Both the provincial Ontario government under Doug Ford and the federal government under both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney have tried to undermine our rights to bargain, strike and protest. In 2022, the Ford government attempted to involve the Notwithstanding Clause under the Canadian Constitution to override the Charter-protected right to force striking education workers, CUPE members represented by the Ontario Secondary School Board Union (OSBCU), a sector within the Ontario Division of CUPE. It was the rapid response of solidarity expressed by CUPE National and other unions which forced Doug Ford to back down.  

Similarly, in August 2025, the Carney federal government invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to intervene in a strike by Air Canada Flight Attendants represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), by directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to order CUPE to end the flight attendants’ strike after 8 hours. CUPE refused to comply, which forced Air Canada to return to the table and negotiate a resolution with CUPE’s Airline Division.  The Liberal government, under both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney, has invoked s. 107 seven other time strikes since summer 2024 in near-strikes and lockouts in ports and airports.  

Carney's omnibus Bill C39, which, generally, overrides workers rights & indigenous consultation rights, environmental impact assessment, species preservation to expedite approval of resources and an infrastructure 'projects of national interest'. 

Carney's Bill 39 Attacks Our Right to Strike:

Bill 39 also contains a specific provision increasing the interference with the right to strike using s. 107. 

A coalition of the Avi Lewis-led federal New Democratic Party (NDP), the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), indigenous leaders including indigenous youth and environmental / climate change groups are organizing efforts to oppose C39. While it may seem to some that this only affects federal workers, this fight is also our fight. As the largest union local in CUPE, Local 79 should fully activate in support of this fight. I Carney’s Liberals pass C39, the Ford government and municipal employers down the road will feel emboldened and again attempt to interfere in collective bargaining and our right to strike. 

Ford’s Ministry of the Solicitor General will be introducing new legislative and non-legislative measures targeting intentional blockades of infrastructure, including:

• New  provincial offenses and fines for non-compliance.
• Mandatory  identification requirements for individuals receiving offense notices.
• Expanded  police authorities and arrest powers (such as arresting individuals who       block infrastructure and refuse to identify themselves).

This criminalization of protests measure is likely to be found to infringe upon constitutional rights to free expression and peaceful assembly under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, once challenges make their way into the courts.

Ford is doing this criminalize peaceful protest in reaction to cycling safety advocates protesting bike lane removal and target likely Indigenous protest in the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario as Ford uses Bill 5 to override full indigenous consultation, labour laws, environmental impact assessments and species preservation. I have met some of the brave indigenous youth who have been actively opposing Bill 5 to defend their communities, their water and lands. They have the right to!

CUPE and the broader labour movement should strongly oppose, including join protests. Now Ford is targeting bike safety advocated & indigenous peoples, tomorrow, it will be the rest of us when we try to defend our rights to bargain, strike or protest.

Anti-Privatization campaigns: 

o Ontario Works privatization: I will continue my efforts to urge CUPE lead a labour-community fight to review Ontario Works modernization, including reversing the outsourcing of employment program referrals in Ontario Works to private companies such as the US-owned Australian WSG, which was paid $255 million to do the work of CUPE members, paid for by gutted supports for vulnerable clients

o Water privatization: CUPE 79 needs to prepare to fight the looming assault on Toronto Water-Wastewater Services as a Public service. While this seems to have been avoided in the recent Toronto Mayoral and City Council election, privatisation of water is likely to be raised again when the Ford government pushes municipalities to implements Bill 60 (Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025), which introduced the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act (WCA), which will install Arms-Length Control of water services in municipalities across Ontario. The WCA allows the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to designate local water and wastewater services to be run by separate corporate entities rather than directly managed by elected municipal councils. The WCA purposefully and ambiguously allows for state "agents" and private shareholding—that open the door to stealth privatization, financialization, and public-private partnerships. This is a new version of the same fight in the early 1990s, when former Premier Mike Harris, his successor Ernie Eves and some Toronto City Councillors sought the move Toronto Water to as Water-Wastewater Services Board, from which they would contract out various components to private companies. CUPE, other unions and the Council of Canadians reacted with the “Water Watch” campaign, one of the first campaigns I became appointed to partake in as CUPE 79 lead. There are lessons to be carried forward from thus labour-community coalition and new strategies and organizing to be acted on.

See above.. CUPE and allies should be prepared to peacefully impede transformation of public infrastucture facilities to private, for profit hands & we need to protest our right to do so without fines and threats of incarceration.

Organizing: In order to right for our rights and protect the services our members provide, we need to continue to organize internally with their members, within CUPE in coalition with other unions and community. Of course we to continue member organizing: While modern union organizing began under my leadership with one-on-one and group member meetings and member engagement team, as the internal component of Local 79’s Taking Care of Toronto campaign, current leadership has deepened organizing with “organize for power.”  This needs to continue and expand to labour community organizing to fight broader attacks on labour rights and democracy.

More timely grievance  hearings & resolution & Clearing the backlog of grievances: Some areas of our employers are worse than others in resolving grievances in a timely manner, some are way behind and take months or years longer than they should, so the number of unresolved grievances grows. This is what is referred to as grievance backlog.  

I have experience in leading efforts to resolve a backlog of grievances. In short, I’ve done this before and could lead an effort to accomplish this again. When I was Chief Steward (2004-2006), I took responsibility for working with Unit Officers, CUPE Reps and others as we strategized on grievances, reviewing legal opinions, and determining final disposition of grievances, and I led the integration of dispute resolution and mediation into grievance and arbitration process. These efforts combined led to the resolution of nearly 4,000 outstanding grievances over a 3-year period (2004-2006) Hundreds of grievances were reviewed every year, and I believe that we must return to providing more transparency and more timely resolution to members complaints and grievances.

Other areas not specifically mentioned on my flyer:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): We must prepare for the looming impact of AI on the services members provide. Both the Carney and Ford government are pushing for AI to be used in the delivery of public services, with Carney spending Billions to underwrite the cost of AI development and AI centres. The impact on jobs is yet unknown, but we must prepare to push back against the implementation in the services our members provide, which could also overlap with the privatization of services.
• Continue efforts at more transparency, making sure the union is fully transparent accountable financial and other matter to members
• Prepare for next collective bargaining
• Install necessary policies and By-Law changes to: 
  • Mandate anti-harassment and anti-racism and training for Local 79 Executives, stewards and organizers
  • Ensure conflict of interest and general code of conduct policies are installed and respected, with consequences for not adhering.