Ford makes it official: Toronto wants to contract out its garbage collection
The last time the Toronto Sun ran a cover story based on an exclusive from the mayor’s office, it was that Rob and Doug Ford were dreaming the impossible dream of bringing an NFL team to Toronto—an idea that not even the Sun’s sports columnist took seriously. But sometimes there’s more important news to break, and this morning it was the Sun that reported that the mayor’s office is moving early to privatize garbage collection in the city.
From the Sun’s story this morning:
The plan is to contract the city’s garbage collection in stages beginning with the start of a new contract with CUPE local 416, which represents trash collectors and other outside workers. The current contract expires on Dec. 31 of this year.
Sources say 90 days notice must be given to the union before council can vote whether to pursue contracting out. Council will also need to decide whether to engage in managed competition (where the union is also allowed to bid) or to seek private bidders only.
At present, city forces collect garbage in every area of Toronto except Etobicoke — a fact that particularly hit home during the 39-day garbage strike of July 2009 when only Etobicoke residents continued to get their trash picked up.
Just before the 12:30 p.m. press conference, reports came out that CUPE 416 had indeed been served notice that the city is going to begin the privatization process. CUPE’s full-time workers have all sorts of work guarantees—essentially, the city has to find new work for them even if it’s not picking up trash. There’s more flexibility in the part-time workers (isn’t there always?), so we assume that Ford’s plan is to shed those workers first.
According to the CBC, the proposal is to start with west Toronto, south of Steeles and between Yonge and the Humber River, which would basically make garbage collection a union-free zone from the Mississauga border to Air Canada Centre (Etobicoke’s already got it, natch). Presumably, full privatization will have to wait until the city renegotiates its contract with CUPE. While candidate Ford promised that privatization would save the city $20 million, this effort is so far estimated to save the city only $8 million.
Of course, all today’s announcement really means is that there’s going to be a really acrimonious city council vote in three months’ time. Mark the 17th of May in the calendar—it’s the first council meeting after the union’s 90-day breathing room period ends. Will council roll over like they did for all of the mayor’s early priorities? We’re skeptical that any councillor will actually be willing to stick their neck out for CUPE when the stench of the strike still lingers, but this city’s politics never fail to surprise.
• Ford moves to contract out trash collection [Toronto Sun]
• Trash pickup privatization plan begins [CBC.ca]
• Rob Ford mounts bid to privatize garbage collection in Toronto [Globe and Mail]
• Who is more deluded: Rob Ford or the labour unions? [Toronto Life]
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/ford-makes-it-official-toronto-is-contracting-out-its-garbage-collection/&title=Ford makes it official: Toronto wants to contract out its garbage collection&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Garbage-Strike.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_54927" align="alignleft" width="315" caption="We've been expecting you, privatization: the smell of the garbage strike still lingers (Image: Alfred Ng, from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)"][/caption]
The last time the Toronto Sun ran a cover story based on an exclusive from the mayor's office, it was that Rob and Doug Ford were dreaming the impossible dream of bringing an NFL team to Toronto—an idea that not even the Sun’s sports columnist took seriously. But sometimes there’s more important news to break, and this morning it was the Sun that reported that the mayor’s office is moving early to privatize garbage collection in the city.
From the Sun’s story this morning:
The plan is to contract the city’s garbage collection in stages beginning with the start of a new contract with CUPE local 416, which represents trash collectors and other outside workers. The current contract expires on Dec. 31 of this year.
Sources say 90 days notice must be given to the union before council can vote whether to pursue contracting out. Council will also need to decide whether to engage in managed competition (where the union is also allowed to bid) or to seek private bidders only.
At present, city forces collect garbage in every area of Toronto except Etobicoke — a fact that particularly hit home during the 39-day garbage strike of July 2009 when only Etobicoke residents continued to get their trash picked up.
Just before the 12:30 p.m. press conference, reports came out that CUPE 416 had indeed been served notice that the city is going to begin the privatization process. CUPE’s full-time workers have all sorts of work guarantees—essentially, the city has to find new work for them even if it’s not picking up trash. There’s more flexibility in the part-time workers (isn’t there always?), so we assume that Ford’s plan is to shed those workers first.
According to the CBC, the proposal is to start with west Toronto, south of Steeles and between Yonge and the Humber River, which would basically make garbage collection a union-free zone from the Mississauga border to Air Canada Centre (Etobicoke’s already got it, natch). Presumably, full privatization will have to wait until the city renegotiates its contract with CUPE. While candidate Ford promised that privatization would save the city $20 million, this effort is so far estimated to save the city only $8 million.
Of course, all today’s announcement really means is that there’s going to be a really acrimonious city council vote in three months’ time. Mark the 17th of May in the calendar—it’s the first council meeting after the union’s 90-day breathing room period ends. Will council roll over like they did for all of the mayor’s early priorities? We’re skeptical that any councillor will actually be willing to stick their neck out for CUPE when the stench of the strike still lingers, but this city’s politics never fail to surprise.
• Ford moves to contract out trash collection [Toronto Sun]
• Trash pickup privatization plan begins [CBC.ca]
• Rob Ford mounts bid to privatize garbage collection in Toronto [Globe and Mail]
• Who is more deluded: Rob Ford or the labour unions? [Toronto Life]){kind=link}
I don’t mind if Ford wants to put his energy into the contract negotiation and privatization of a service that has been proven to work in cities elsewhere. This is a topic that he has the experience, knowledge and intellectual capacity to handle.
So play with garbage all you want, Fordies, but stay the !@$#!&*(@!# away from streetcars, parks, green roofs, bike lanes, the NFL and all other over-your-head topics that you can only cause harm with.
Privatization of garbage does work. Guess who had garbage collection when the rest of the city was buried in garbage? Etobicoke?
Whats the issue here , no one owns the jobs and the city may well allow the union to bid.Full time Union members get guaranteed work.
Competition is healthy and it gives tax payers good value. Not to mention that the company that wins the bid may be unionized .Did I mention that the decision makers were elected by the people.
Torontonians,
Privatization of garbage collection can work. It is a form of outsourcing where bottom line financial achievements are made through cuts to pay, benefits and pensions as well as cuts to safety measures and training.
Historically, this has been done by sending jobs off-shore, to be completed in impoverished countries, by companies paying employees less, for example.
Garbage collection is a dangerous job that operates year round to clean up messes like what is depicted in the photo above. Do the employees who do this work not deserve a good wage? Benefits and a pension plan? How about to afford a small house, and to put their children through college? By working with the City for many years and collectively agreeing on their current wage, benefits etc., do these employees, and other employees who work for the city (all of which will be directly affected) deserve to have their job taken away?
The photo posted above shows a problem with Garbage in the city, and not necessarily a problem with the service (although this is what happens when service is disprupted).
The reasons for privatization are unsound. As Ray has indicated, private companies that bid on garbage collection may be unionized. Additionally, any group of employees has the right to organize into a bargaining unit. This means that going private does not necessarily guarantee that a garbage strike will be averted. It also does not guarantee any real savings to taxpayers, in the short or long run.
Lord Simcoe – Unfortunately, if the Mayor is successful in privatizing garbage collection, other areas such as parks that you have mentioned are going to be affected.
Displacing employees from garbage collection will cost the city thousands, and perhaps millions of dollars (through redeployment), and effectively put other permanent, and many temporary workers ( who have a lower annual income) out of work. The Mayor will be trying to eliminate the size of government by 1/2 (downsizing), and reduce the financial pressure of salaries and programs throughout the city.
The estimated shortfall for 2012 (around 700 million +), cannot be achieved via these means. Citizens should expect major cuts to services, user-fee increases, the sale of assets (parklands are city assets too), and property tax hikes in 2012, 2013 and on to balance the books, and offset any debt. that will be accrued to operate in 2012, and future.
It is important to note that City Councillors were not allowed to talk about the 2012 forecast or any analysts notes regarding 2012 when discussing properties of the 2011 budget. Most can agree that long term planning is good planning.
Good value is important. Toronto is valued as one of the Top 100 employers in Canada. Paste this link in your browser to find out why:
http://www.eluta.ca/top-employer-city-of-toronto
To get good value you need accountability. To do this effectively the City of Toronto recently opened (2009) Office of the Ombudsman – City of Toronto, to investigate and create real life accountability, and ensuring equitable treatment and transparency in process. See http://ombudstoronto.ca/our-values for more.
Unfortunately the 2011 budget did not allow for the further development (approximate cost of $60-65K) of the office’s investigational and operational needs despite the Mayor’s campaign promise for accountability and transparency. However, many have learned that $3Mill of the 2011 budget (Non program account) will be used to find efficiencies by hiring 3rd party consultants.
As an employer, the City of Toronto is in DIRECT control of city services and they are fully accountable to the taxpayer. How much accountablity/responsibility will the City of Toronto have when WE the taxpayer are no longer in direct control of city services?
I’ll finish of by adding a quote from an email I received from our Mayor, followed by some questions to ponder.
QUOTE (with formatting removed):
“I campaigned on a promise to contract out garbage. We have notified the unions that we will discuss contracting out at Toronto City Council in May. We are doing this so we can avoid garbage strikes in the future, reduce the size of government and save $8 million in taxpayers’ money.”
At what cost will we save $8 Million? (service cuts, downsizing)
What is the $3 Million for? -since we know how much ($8MIL) and where (through outsourcing & downsizing) our savings will come from.
Will contracting out garbage collection really avoid a strike in the future?
Call your City Councillor.
David.
You are doing this Mr.Ford because you want to bust the unions and your so called cost savings seem to be dropping millions as each day passes 50 to 15 to 8 now 6 million.
Your respecting the taxpayers such as giving the police a heafty pay raise of 11.5 % and doing nothing about the real gravy train of this paid duty costing alot more tham 5.2 million a year to be sure.
You lacked the back bone to face the police union I know.
You gave the TTC a gravy train giving them jobs for life when you know that work force could have easily been contracted out.
You have no respect for anyone and just because your wealthy does not give you privilage to treat the hardest workers in the whole damn public service like trash and so you have created a situation of bringing out all the cranks and whiners to bash on those folks.
Your a disgrace and your not worthy of respect from me as a taxpayer in Toronto.
You shouldn’t that be the true goal of blogging? Intelligent conversation? As a blogger, the focus should be on starting that conversation; for readers, it should be adding to it.
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