City Unions Prove The Need To Revisit Contracting Out

The city unions and leftists on city council have said they can provide additional garbage pickup at no additional cost...IF there figures are correct imagine how much money might be saved if we had the auditor look at all services provided by city workers.

Are numbers right on union trash?
By Lorrie Goldstein, Toronto Sun Senior Associate Editor
February 16, 2007

Do our eyes deceive us? Can it possibly be true?

Are City Hall bureaucrats really telling us that they've found a way for the city to pick up more trash than it does now "with no additional staff or equipment" because of economies of scale and the efficiencies available due to amalgamation?

Yep -- that's what a staff report on its way to council says.

It states Toronto taxpayers will save $4 million a year starting in 2008 (imagine!) by having the city's unionized workers take over garbage collection in York, which is now contracted out to a private firm.

Amazingly, just last year an audit on that very same idea concluded this would cost the city $360,000 a year more in operating expenses and $4.4 million extra in capital charges.

But by golly, city and union staff rolled up their sleeves and came up with ingenious ways to do the work more efficiently and economically. Why, it almost sounds too good to be true.

Since City Hall these days is clearly an irony-free zone, one might just note that achieving economies of scale and exploiting efficiencies available through amalgamation was the whole idea behind ... uh ... amalgamation.

So when this issue gets to council, we can't wait to hear all the NDP councillors who have been screaming ever since 1998 about what a rotten deal amalgamation was and that there was no such thing as economies of scale or efficiencies to be had, now explain why there are when it comes to in-sourcing a garbage contract.

And since competition from the private sector has apparently prompted the city and its unions to find a better and more efficient way to collect the garbage, why stop there? All the more reason every city service should be opened up for bidding to the private sector.

After all, as we've just seen in York, competition from the private sector apparently prompted the city to come up with a more efficient way to collect its own garbage.

Assuming of course, that all the numbers add up.

We think the city auditor should be called in to check them. Just to be sure.