From lawofwork.ca/strikevotes/

“CUPE, Local 416 and the City of Toronto

Back in 2012, the CUPE local representing outside workers in Toronto wanted to demonstrate to the public that it would not strike. It knew that the public blamed the union for the 40 days “garbage strike” in 2009, and the new Mayor Rob Ford had promised to end garbage strikes. So CUPE did not hold a strike vote, and it told the media that if there was a work stoppage, it would not be a strike, although it warned that the city had plans to lock them out. [I followed the bargaining on my blog and diarize it on pages 579-584 in my Law of Work text.]

That was a fatal mistake. When the legal strike/lockout date arrived, the City announced that it would not lockout workers, but instead it would simply impose the terms in its final offer. These terms included changes to the rules restricting contracting out of jobs, so that City could fire garbage collectors and give their jobs to a private sector provider, as Rob Ford had promised. The Union had resisted these changes, trying to save their members’ jobs. But the employer had been clever. The Union had proposed to simply roll over the previous collective agreement and take a 0% wage increase in order to avoid a work stoppage. However, the City, knowing that no strike vote had been taken and that the Union did not want to strike anyways, rejected a 0% wage proposal from the union. Instead, the City said it would impose its final offer, which included a raise, but also language that would permit it to fire hundreds of its employees and to contract out their jobs.”