from the Star:
Union closed shop for city?
Mar. 25, 2006. 10:57 AM
ROYSON JAMES
Facing a city budget spiralling out of control, expenses rising to $300 million above revenues, six city councillors sit down to find savings in Toronto's multi-billion-dollar budget. They make multiple recommendations to the mayor.
Far from a broadside attack on unionized workers, the report suggests council focus more on its core services, look for areas to privatize services and do so in a sensitive manner, working with civic unions.
The group warns that strong political will is essential to change the status quo.
But for more than a year, the mayor, council's leader, sits on the proposals, unable to muster the political will — some say the stomach — to challenge the civic unions that dominate municipal services.
If you're thinking David Miller, the union-coddling, workers-embracing, brothers-and-sisters magistrate now reigning at city hall, think again.
In fact, it was Mel Lastman — the mayor who took the city on a strike to end what he characterized as the civic unions' desire to have "jobs for life" — who dithered in 2000 and eventually failed to implement the modest proposals of the Single City Savings Task Force.
"We didn't have the votes. We couldn't get it through," explains Councillor Case Ootes, then Lastman's deputy.
Some say Lastman didn't try hard enough. What is clear now is there is no appetite at Toronto City Hall for managed competition, alternate service delivery, out-sourcing or any of the euphemisms for turning over union jobs to the private sector.
No appetite yesterday, today, or ...
In fact, as Toronto's budget shortfall increases — reaching past $500 million this year — the chances of privatizing city services has disappeared.
Whereas Mel put up a fight, ineffective though it proved to be, and citizens suffered through a strike, the current boss has gone in the opposite direction. In last year's labour negotiations, Miller gave the civic unions job protection they may never relinquish. He gave them a clause guaranteeing against contracting out city work. Even more, he's supported a move to bring services, once privatized, back into the union fold.
"This mayor has gone far beyond what was needed to bring them (unions) along ... with a supportive perspective," says budget chief David Soknacki. For example, agreeing to pay summer students at the union wage rate of $17.50 an hour to pick up litter is ridiculous when they "would be thrilled" to do it for $12 an hour, Soknacki says.
The high student wage is a product of insistence from the union that the jobs remain union positions, a disincentive for the city to erode union jobs.
"The pendulum has swung too far in the direction of a closed shop. It's taboo. You don't even consider it," says Soknacki, who can hardly be described as a radical right-winger.
Etobicoke and York had their garbage and recycling collection privatized before amalgamation in 1998, and they still do. A recent city study shows it would cost $1.3 million more per year to return the service to the city unions, plus start-up costs of $900,000 and $14.6 million to buy new trucks and equipment.
Some councillors argue waste collection should be privatized across the city to save money. But council's majority prefers to have some of it contracted out and some done by city workers. Until now, it seems.
Left-leaning councillors were skeptical of the study and ordered a review. In the meantime, there is a move to delay re-awarding the York contract to the private sector (it's up for renewal next year) until the Etobicoke contract is up in 2008. The move, endorsed by Miller, is seen as a forerunner to contracting in the service.
Councillor Brian Ashton, who sat on that initial task force in 1999, says while he doesn't favour the willy-nilly turning over of city work to the private sector, city council needs leverage to get productivity gains from its unionized workforce.
"Miller believes he will work face-to-face with unions and they will deliver these benefits. We haven't seen anything because there is no leverage," Ashton says.
Another consideration is this: While all evidence points to a fiscal problem at city hall, it's clear the mayor believes there are no savings — make that, only teensy-weensy savings — available in the city departmental budgets.
"If that's the case, there's no need for discussions and debate around contracting out," says Ashton. "How do you get continuous improvement when the unions know they don't have to pay. And at the end of the day, you'll salute and say, `Yes sir.'"
Additional articles by Royson James
