City workers

[customer]

Should city workers actually live in the city where they work?

City jobs tend to be good secure jobs, if the people employed in them lived where they worked they would spend their money in the same community thus supporting other jobs. If the workers lived where they worked, they might care about their jobs a little more in their concern for waste as this would have a direct impact on them and raise their property taxes.
Rob Ford will be able to eliminate/ contract out these jobs as the workers they affect can't vote for him. If they wanted to control politicians it would be wise for them to have a political voice.
When the province was voting to make the TTC an essential service at the request of the ELECTED members of city council, it was touching to see protesters from Sudbury and points beyond opposed to the vote. Why are they sticking their nose into city business in a city where they do not live?
The people of the city of Toronto asked for and received this outcome.

 

[harryass]

yep if qualifications is same, they should at least be given first choice on city jobs.

 

[customer]

Qualifications! Most city jobs provide on the job training on the taxpayers dime. The fire department just accepted 12 to train out of 600 applicants, they better be Toronto citizens. These applicants all pay a fee just to apply so, you better believe that they are qualified or it would be money down the drain.

 

[customer]

If you read the charter section 6 part E you would see that my idea is not in violation as it involves intra provincial mobility. I can not restrict you from living in one province and working in another but, I can restrict where you work WITHIN the province you live in.

 

[oldjones]

If you read the charter section 6 part E you would see that my idea is not in violation as it involves intra provincial mobility. I can not restrict you from living in one province and working in another but, I can restrict where you work WITHIN the province you live in.

If your workers don't want to live in your city or can't afford to, you're a failure.

It's never about the guys who 'just work here'. It's about the guys with the power who make the decisions. If it isn't why do they even have jobs? And if we're talking democratic governments, the job of making the place affordable and desireable is ours.

 

[james t kirk]

Absurd.

I work all over Canada. Should I be moving every month to work in whatever place I'm working out of?

Bottom line - I pay my taxes. A lot of taxes and all of my taxes and my taxes go to the "greater good". If I can't work, I can't pay my taxes. I could care less where a City worker lives.

 

[customer]

So, you are telling me the cops who make 65,000 plus per year can not afford to live in Toronto.

 

[CapitalGuy]

So, you are telling me the cops who make 65,000 plus per year can not afford to live in Toronto.

He can probably afford to. But if he feels he can give his family a slightly better life by moving further afield into a cheaper community, do we have the right to deny him that freedom of movement? Seems a bit dictatorial in so progressive a country as Canada, to put mobility restrictions on our citizens.

And, the variables are endless. What about a long-term employee who moves out of the city later in life - is his career to be abandoned because he wants a bigger house or wants to live nearer his aging parents in Whitby? What about a city worker in Toronto who marries a city worker in Mississauga? Would one of them have to give up their jobs so they can get married and actually live together? Or would there be a neutral zone between the cities where the couple could live? Does that sound like the Canada you want to live in? Hey, how about all-white Oakville enacting such a law - can you hear the cries of racial discrimination? They did it "just to keep 'dem coloureds folks out of Oakville". You know those complaints will all come forward.

I doubt this would withstand a Charter challenge. Thus no politician would be stupid enough to move forward with it.

 

[JohnLarue]

This is one of the worst ideas yet (and I have seen a lot of them)
The very last thing you want is additional red tape layered into the hiring process.

If the candidate is legally allowed to work in Canada, is the best person for the job and he / she is able to perform effectively then where he / she lives is completely irrelevant

 

[JohnLarue]

If your workers don't want to live in your city or can't afford to, you're a failure.

It's never about the guys who 'just work here'. It's about the guys with the power who make the decisions. If it isn't why do they even have jobs? And if we're talking democratic governments, the job of making the place affordable and desireable is ours.

That response is long on ideals, but lacks real world solutions
Are you advocating wage and price controls in order to provide city workers with affordable housing?

 

[oldjones]

That response is long on ideals, but lacks real world solutions
Are you advocating wage and price controls in order to provide city workers with affordable housing?

Don't be silly. What I'm advocating is that we live up to our constant boast that it's a free country.There are words for people who aren't free to live where and as they choose because their employers have said they cannot.

There is no problem here requiring any solution, let alone something outta the middle ages like serfs tied to their noble lord's estate. That's what you call a 'real-world' solution?

It sure would make a mockery of the 'free bargaining' between employer and employees setting 'real-world' wages though wouldn't it? If you hadda offer wages high enough to actually entice qualified people to move back into town, or make do with the one's who clog TCHC's waiting lists? Not that giving them serious employment possibilities would be entirely bad.

My sweetie's cousin was a Detroit cop and had to live in the city by law. He moved constantly, contributed nothing to the neighbourhoods he was in, and the PD had full-time officers checking up on him and his colleagues. He left the day he'd put in his twenty. What a benefit that was to him and the city.

If you run the city, your job is to make it a place people choose to live. Wasting more than a minute on the idea of forcing anyone to live there is time you're not doing the job you're paid for. As in so many things, the problem is not the workers, it's the 'managers'.

Since this was justa TERBian fantasy, there is no problem in fact. Not until some 'manager' who can't do his job, but thinks he can get this thru gives it a try.