Can Ontario sidestep a public service work stoppage?

Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government and Ontario's 35,000-strong public service union returned to the bargaining table Tuesday morning, but neither side appears optimistic this round of talks will succeed.

When OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas was asked about the chances of a breakdown on CBC's Metro Morning, he agreed failure was likely.

• Click here to listen to Thomas's interview on Metro Morning

But Thomas insists that's not what he wants. He and his membership are looking for a negotiated settlement – a new contract to replace the one that expired Dec. 31.

Thomas says Wynne had warned him last August in a private meeting to expect a "net zero" in a new contract and that he was "fine" with that. But, then came the government's first offer that he said was "worse than what Mike Harris" offered public service workers.

Thomas said the contract strips away job security and reduces benefits paid to injured workers or those on long-term disability, forcing them to "fight the insurance companies and their cancer," while continuing the Liberals' drive to privatize.

For her part, Wynne continues to say "there will always be disagreements," but that her government is working with – as she puts it – their "public-sector partners."

The premier says she believes in "the collective bargaining process."

But while she may have faith in that process, she is also preparing for the worst.

Government sources say public service managers have – as recently as last week – been told two things: cancel holiday plans and get up to speed on how to run things without unionized staff.

And, that's particularly true in the province's jails where managers are being trained in the event of a work stoppage.

As talks resume, OPSEU will continue a series of pickets at the offices of Liberal MPPs that will lead to a large demonstration at Queen's Park Feb. 17, the day MPPs return from a holiday break.

As this dispute escalates, the Liberals are faced with negotiating new teacher contracts with an increasingly hostile group of unions whose members are just as unhappy with Wynne as are public servants.

And then there's the new war with Ontario doctors.

That's a lot on any premier's plate and a real test of Wynne's will to control spending and balance the books as she reminds her public-sector partners of her majority government win in the last provincial election – something Thomas, for example, says he saw as "a threat" from the premier long before negotiations even began.

It was former prime minister Jean Chrétien who famously warned of the risks in politics, as in life, of painting yourself into a corner. There are only two ways out he said: "You can wait until the paint dries or, you can walk on the wet paint."

At this point in the dispute between the Liberals and their civil service workers, it appears that both Wynne and Thomas maybe preparing to walk on the other's wet paint.