Less than a day after Toronto's city council ordered them back to the bargaining table, the union representing stagehands at Exhibition Place says the facility's board of governors doesn't want to take part in "meaningful negotiations" or end the lockout, and that talks scheduled for Sunday are now in jeopardy.
"Before we left [Friday] night, we said to them 'we still want to meet tomorrow'," IATSE Local 58 president Justin Antheunis told NEWSTALK1010 Saturday. "But the city needs to be able to negotiate."
"They said that they had a mandate to only come to the table with what they came to the table with. They didn't have a mandate to actually negotiate, which doesn't help anybody," he added.
Antheunis says Local 58 is willing to work around the clock to negotiate, but feels they are unlikely to find a resolution between the two sides of the board insists on contracting out IATSE jobs on the grounds of Exhibition Place - the main disagreement behind the lockout in the first place.
In a release put out by the union Saturday morning, it says "the city's proposals, by contrast, strongly reflected the interests of multi-billion dollar corporations such as Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, with no regard for Toronto workers or consumers."
Antheunis says at this point, they're just looking to get back to work.
"We've removed most of the things that we've asked for from the table in an effort to get our workers back doing the jobs that they love to do," he said, adding that he's disappointed in Mayor John Tory.
"He said at the City Council meeting on Tuesday that he wanted to see a deal done. He wanted to see that the city can come back to the table with a new mediator and get a properly-negotiated contract, and he was the one who said that he wanted to see it fair for both the city and the workers."
"He's failed us right now, because what we've seen that the city's come back with, is not that at all," Antheunis added.
At an appearance Saturday afternoon, Tory reiterated that he wanted to see the two sides reaching an agreement that was fair all around.
"I'm very optimistic," Tory told reporters. "My understanding is Exhibition Place has invited the IATSE union to come to the table again tomorrow and I hope they both go. They're not going to be solving this if they're not sitting at the table. I want to see them sitting at the table."
The city-initiated lockout began on July 20.
- With files from CP24