A striking Vancouver union leader and the city's mayor disagree whether a new labour contract's end date could affect the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Mayor Sam Sullivan said Monday that a key issue for the city is to not have the 2010 Winter Olympics disrupted by the contract ending and unions being in a strike position.

"The unions have insisted we cannot add the 90-day Olympic effort on to the end of the three-year agreement," Sam Sullivan told CTV Newsnet on Monday.

The city wants the 90 days to take the contract's end past the Olympic and Paralympic games, he said.

Those games will be over by March 22, 2010.

All other public-sector unions in B.C. have agreed to the 90-day extension, he said.

"We cannot get the Vancouver union to agree that they should not have the right to strike during the middle of what should be Vancouver's finest hour," Sullivan said.

The union rejects that position.

"Mayor Sullivan is continually saying in his press conferences and to the public in Vancouver that the union actually wants the right to shut down the Olympics," Paul Faoro, president of CUPE Local 15, told Newsnet.

He said that his union is willing to sign a four-year deal, which would take the city well past the Olympics period to the end of 2010.

"Unfortunately, now Mayor Sullivan is saying the four-year deal isn't good enough for him because it might interfere with the municipal election the following year. This has been one of our frustrations, that the story continually changes out of our mayor."

Sullivan was elected mayor in November 2005. Municipal elections are held every three years in Vancouver.

Indoor workers walk

Indoor municipal workers in Vancouver walked off the job on Monday.

The job action by the 2,700 workers shuts down a range of services. They join 1,800 garbage collectors, street construction crews and other outdoor workers who began striking on Friday.

CUPE is calling this a full city shutdown.

Library workers could have joined the strike Monday afternoon, but they have chosen the study session route for now.

City officials say about 600 management and staff will try to maintain some essential services, but they won't be able to cover all the work of the estimated 6,000 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) workers who will be out on picket lines. They are collecting payments for parking fines.

The union's position

Wages are part of the dispute. The city is offering 10 per cent over the term of the contract.

Faoro said reports the union are seeking a raise of up to 18 per cent are incorrect.

"We have not tabled that. ... We haven't had enough negotiations to actually get to the table and actually talk about the terms," he said.

A city spokesperson says the two sides are too far apart to resume bargaining. Faoro said the city is refusing to come to the table.

"There are many issues driving this dispute that are not getting talked about," he said.

The city wants concessions that would weaken internal promotional language and layoff provisions. "This is really troublesome with labour shortages in the province," Faora said.

Job security and workloads are key issues to the union's membership, he said.

The impact

The city is asking people not to put trash on the street or in public waste bins. Garbage pickup will continue for commercial properties and apartment buildings since it is handled by private contractors. Merchants are being asked to clean the sidewalks in front of their businesses.

Residential garbage and recycling, which haven't been picked up since Thursday, are already piling up on laneways.

Stanley Park will remain open, but park washroom maintenance will be reduced. Beaches will remain open as lifeguards have been declared an essential service.

The indoor workers' strike has left many families who've put their kids in summer day camp scrambling to find alternate arrangements for child care.

Community and recreation centres are closed, as are municipal golf courses and swimming pools.

Even stray dogs won't be picked up unless they're deemed to be dangerous.

"There will be all sorts of problems," said striker Kevin Cavell. "There always is, it's not a good thing for anybody."

Two other municipalities in the Lower Mainland could launch job actions in the coming days. Several others haven't taken strike votes and are progressing in their negotiations.

Past Vancouver's civic strikes have dragged on. A dispute in 2000 lasted seven weeks, and a 1997 strike lasted six weeks.      

With a report from CTV's Janet Dirks