Justin10000
Banned
Off topic, you have a great blog, Graphic Matt. You should promote it more.
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Privatizing Garbage Collection
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
- Start date
Justin10000
Banned
It's about petty-minded revenge, and simple disdain for unions. Nothing more.
Garbage collection is paid with user fees. With privatization, I guess the chances of the fees going up yearly is a certainity?
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Yes, of course it is. If you screw with me, I'll screw with you. If you refuse to do your job and leave the city as an unhealthy trash heap so that you can strong-arm Torontonians for concessions, you can bet that at the next earliest opportunity those same Torontonians will seek payback. What else did the union expect?
DanTheMan
New Member
Like many Ford supporters, debate seems to be an exercise in futility. There were two parties involved in the strike. The city delayed and stalled negotiations for months until the last possible minute while the union was prepared to negotiate. Councillors gave themselves a hefty raise and then expected these people to roll over and take wage reductions and heavy job losses? What would you have done if your boss did that?
Admiral Beez
Superstar
And that's why the mayor's chosen successor and much of the council were chucked out at the last election. The "bosses" gave themselves a raise and paid for it with their jobs.
jeff316
Active Member
You realize that the mayor's chosen successor dropped out and that 30 out of 36 incumbents were re-elected, right?
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
Thanks, Justin. I try not to be too annoying with the signature appearing multiple times in threads. I'm glad you're reading, though.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Left-wing councillors get their hands dirty by trash-talking Ford
Left-leaning councillors rolled their eyes. Yet as the debate unfolded over the afternoon and into Tuesday evening, those same councillors managed to do something extraordinary. They exceeded the mayor’s expectations.
In a scaremongering performance that would have make the editors of the Socialist Worker proud, they denounced the city’s modest plan to contract out garbage pickup west of Yonge Street as a dastardly scheme that would line the pockets of corporate bosses, throw workers on the rubbish heap, invite the Mob into the garbage business and – the ultimate horror – imperil the city’s recycling program.
Former budget chief Shelley Carroll of Ward 33, Don Valley East, suggested that a Toronto with privatized trash pickup could become as mobbed-up as it has been in some American cities. Quoting liberally from The New York Times – “not a tabloid, mind you†– she said the garbage industry had acquired “a reputation for being racketeering-infested, given to violence and murder.â€
In a similar vein, Kristyn Wong-Tam of Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, said that private operators “can be prone to corruption, grafting, bribery†(though she may have meant graft). She did not stop there. Unlike the caring public sector, she said, private companies are concerned only with the bottom line, and “we know what the bottom line is about – it’s about profits.â€
Pam McConnell, of Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, said that by embarking on privatization, Toronto risked becoming a polarized city of rich and poor. While current garbage workers might survive contracting out, “their kids and our kids and other kids and kids of new immigrants who come in and want to get into the work force – there will be a closed door for them. There’ll be no benefits, there’ll be no future as seniors, there’ll be no houses that they can buy.â€
Not only that, she said, privatization might jeopardize the right of women to work in the garbage trade. “If women want to put garbage in the back of trucks,†she said, “they have every right to do it, and these contracts don’t allow them.â€
Mike Layton of Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina, depicted a post-privatization world right out of Dickens. Contracting out garbage, he said, could endanger the public, “because the way that management gives incentives in fact encourages drivers to be reckless.†It would endanger workers, too. Under private contracting, “sick and injured workers will be required to get on the back of that truck, health be damned.†In effect, contractors would be “working them to grave because they don’t have pensions.â€
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...s-dirty-by-trash-talking-ford/article2027569/
Left-leaning councillors rolled their eyes. Yet as the debate unfolded over the afternoon and into Tuesday evening, those same councillors managed to do something extraordinary. They exceeded the mayor’s expectations.
In a scaremongering performance that would have make the editors of the Socialist Worker proud, they denounced the city’s modest plan to contract out garbage pickup west of Yonge Street as a dastardly scheme that would line the pockets of corporate bosses, throw workers on the rubbish heap, invite the Mob into the garbage business and – the ultimate horror – imperil the city’s recycling program.
Former budget chief Shelley Carroll of Ward 33, Don Valley East, suggested that a Toronto with privatized trash pickup could become as mobbed-up as it has been in some American cities. Quoting liberally from The New York Times – “not a tabloid, mind you†– she said the garbage industry had acquired “a reputation for being racketeering-infested, given to violence and murder.â€
In a similar vein, Kristyn Wong-Tam of Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, said that private operators “can be prone to corruption, grafting, bribery†(though she may have meant graft). She did not stop there. Unlike the caring public sector, she said, private companies are concerned only with the bottom line, and “we know what the bottom line is about – it’s about profits.â€
Pam McConnell, of Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, said that by embarking on privatization, Toronto risked becoming a polarized city of rich and poor. While current garbage workers might survive contracting out, “their kids and our kids and other kids and kids of new immigrants who come in and want to get into the work force – there will be a closed door for them. There’ll be no benefits, there’ll be no future as seniors, there’ll be no houses that they can buy.â€
Not only that, she said, privatization might jeopardize the right of women to work in the garbage trade. “If women want to put garbage in the back of trucks,†she said, “they have every right to do it, and these contracts don’t allow them.â€
Mike Layton of Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina, depicted a post-privatization world right out of Dickens. Contracting out garbage, he said, could endanger the public, “because the way that management gives incentives in fact encourages drivers to be reckless.†It would endanger workers, too. Under private contracting, “sick and injured workers will be required to get on the back of that truck, health be damned.†In effect, contractors would be “working them to grave because they don’t have pensions.â€
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...s-dirty-by-trash-talking-ford/article2027569/
spider
Senior Member
Does anyone know how many or what percentage of CUPE members working for the city of Toronto actually live in the city that employs them?
I am not sure what could be made of such a number, just curious.
I am not sure what could be made of such a number, just curious.
DanTheMan
New Member
It's probably less than half, but I know where you're going with this I am honestly don't think that's a fair assessment to use. You'd be hard pressed to find a decent home in the city for less than 450k/500k...most people simply can't afford that. A new home 25 minutes east of the city can be had for less than 300k, that's a pretty substantial difference. Not my cup of tea personally to live in the burbs, but I can see the allure.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
It's apparently not legal for the city to do give preference to hiring employees who live within the city limits, so it's not really a fair criticism. I wish more city workers, cops, TTC employees, etc. lived in Toronto, but as far as I know there's not a lot we can do to make that the reality.
Loozrboy
New Member
That's the kicker in all this. Ford Fans and union bashers are trumpeting this as a great victory over the union, but the only union jobs that are being lost are a few hundred temporary and/or part-time postions, presumably mostly at the bottom of the pay scale. The full-time employees have a clause in their contract that explicity protects their jobs in the event of contracting out. So all those archetypal fat, lazy slobs that you think you're "getting back at" for the strike are just fine, carrying on with the same seniority and benefits in other city jobs.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Doesn't matter. Like all political agendas from the left or right, or for that matter any case of supposed public outrage, it is the simple message and apparent result of acting on that message that matters, not the reality.
Loozrboy
New Member
Ah, yes. Well if one is only concerned with perception and ignores reality, then Rob Ford is perhaps the greatest mayor we've ever had
.tkip
Active Member
Exactly. The entitlement just pissed off too many people and Ford came in. Sadly, the unions are going to pay the price for greedy policticians and people jealous of union jobs.