The way things are going for Ford, he'd probably lose that vote. (Ironic because he won the last one). But given what happened with respect to contracting out office cleaning staff (City Council figures it right to pay office cleaners 75 grand a year), I guess Ford figures why bother.
Ford may be a boor, but he's right about cutting the size of the City's payroll.
There are not too many cities that I can think of that employ people to collect garbage. (Why should they?)
Even if there is NO cost savings (which will not be the case as it will save millions), we won't have to put up with any more strikes in which mountains of festering rotting stinking garbage are allowed to accumulate in residential neighbourhoods.
Last first: Nothing I'm aware of limits the right of the contractor's employees to unionize or strike. The City's only 'protection' from that is the length of time the process would take, but a decently run enterprise paying fair wages for the work should give us little to fear. Until some arbitrary cost-cutter tries to 'manage' by
diktat.
The City's responsibility is to ensure that garbage is collected, because we need a healthy sanitary environment. (A new thread about who should pay for taking away your old sofa or stove might turn up some interesting thoughts, though) The
only thing new since Ford is that the City is now employing one corporate person, which will be taking a profit, as well as paying the actual trash collectors that we cannot do without. But only for half the City. The logic of that is: "City managers aren't as good as yours; they can't make the deals your guys do. Picking up the trash? Anyone can do that".
Why that applies for only half the City, until there's an election almost three years from now is my question. We'll see if performance is maintained by the new workforce; likewise their non-union status. But the City is still paying people to collect garbage. GFL's managers and owners won't be doing it. Who cares? If GFL's a good deal, why aren't we now moving to get the same deal east of Yonge. Is private business too slow to bid? Does the City really have that kinda money to piss away?
Unanswered here is why connect the delay East of Yonge to the election in 2014, without the slightest pretense of any civic benefit, but only to serve Rob's personal re-election? Who is opposed to moving eastwards? What it amounts to is: Privatizing's good. But I won't even try to work with the Council that already voted for privatizing in order to get that good soonest and largest across the City. Instead I'll pout for 2½ years, then pretend we need a Crusade to make it happen because of the implacable opposition of Council. Rob's asking us to buy him a second term by paying inflated costs for garbage collection.
So that City Garbage GravyTrain continues to career down the greavy-greased tracks with no one at the controls. Of course there's also the 'whoops' of the $39million the Solid Waste Department earned last year, before Rob and Council sold half to GFL Rob's being silent about that windfall.
Could GFL have paid for a cash cow with magic beans? We'll have a coupla years to see, unless Rob rearranges the books so the remaining east-side half of that surplus isn't detectable. Perish the thought!
