After promising no layoffs for city staff, Rob Ford admits layoffs are likely for city staff

The big news coming from city hall this morning really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Although the mayor repeatedly declared during his election campaign last year that there would be no layoffs at city hall during his tenure, the bitter reality for the Ford administration is that attrition simply won’t provide for sufficient labour savings to avoid layoffs. The buyout plan offered to city staff didn’t get the uptake it needed—we were conditionally optimistic about the buyout when it was rolled out—and as a result, Ford’s office is poised to do the exact thing it said it wouldn’t.
According to the Toronto Star:
Sources within city staff and close to Ford confirmed this week that the directive to cut $380 million in spending, combined with what appears to be very low employee participation in the city’s buyout offer, make it virtually certain the mayor will ask council to pass a budget that pushes hundreds or thousands of gainfully employed city workers out the door.
That would represent a dramatic turnaround from last Sept. 27 — a month before Ford was elected — when he unveiled his “Saving Our City” plan on YouTube.
“Instead of a hiring freeze my plan is to reduce the city’s workforce through attrition,” Ford said, adding that about 6 per cent of city employees retire each year. “We’ll promote from within to fill many important roles with people who already have work for the city. No need for layoffs.” The actual attrition rate is 2.7 per cent.
Basically Ford was banking on an attrition rate that turned out to be unrealistic. But, really, who could have predicted that? The answer is lots of people. Former Toronto Sun columnist Rob Granatstein—who mysteriously parted ways with his employer earlier this week—called it in January, while other reporters repeatedly noted during the election that Ford’s six per cent figure was inflated. Honestly, we’re not even angry anymore: the pattern of “Rob Ford makes appealing-but-unrealistic promise” followed by “Whoops, it turns out the math was off all along” is something we’re getting used to. We’re just surprised that anybody’s actually surprised. Also, we’d like to suggest to the folks living along Sheppard, waiting for a subway to be built, to get used to it as well.
• Ford poised to break promise of no layoffs [Toronto Star]
• It’s either layoffs or major tax increases: Ford [Toronto Sun]
• Toronto mayor to city staff: take a buyout or face layoffs [Globe and Mail]
• Ford: Workers rejecting buyouts may be laid off [CBC]
If only his campaign promises had been not to shed any weight rather than people’s jobs, livelihoods and the associated economic benefits of having them employed….that would have been both believable and attainable.
Instead we will live with their drain on our system from large severance and Employment Insurance payments without any productivity benefit to Toronto. Maybe they can get jobs at Swiss Chalet or The Keg, the favourite local Toronto cuisine of our fine Mayor. At least he’ll keep those employees in demand.
Rob Ford would have said anything and promised anything to get elected Mayor.
If enough people had been following this guy those ten years in council they would have seen clearly he was not the man for Mayor.
What a surprise , no gravy train , off the wall figures for savings , none of them accurate or any were near the actual amounts witch are much lower.
Bullying people , just as he did in council all those years.
Threatening a 35% tax increase if he does not get his way.
All of this was so predictable for this man.
With a 53% voter turn outs it is obvious the morons spoke a vast number of eligible voters who didn’t bother to vote and let the tards make the choice for them.