Payback Time For City Unions

The mayor, through his bum boy Coun. Adam Giambrone. are paying back CUPE for the union's support during the last two elections.

February 15, 2007
Handing more trash to union
By SUE-ANN LEVY

I couldn't help but laugh yesterday at Coun. Adam Giambrone's outlandish claims that any move to in-source trash pickup in the old city of York is strictly pragmatic.

"This whole decision is based on pragmatism," Giambrone said, implying that politics has not factored into it one bit.

"This council and this committee has been working on this in incredible depth," he added.

Now as a good socialist soldier in Mayor David Miller's regime, Giambrone has his role to play perpetuating the party line.

But practicality has hardly been the forte of Miller and Co. Moreover, Giambrone's claims that the issue has been studied "in depth" for five or six years is a load of trash.

While talk of allowing Brother Brian Cochrane and the guys and gals in CUPE 416 to take over all of the city's garbage pickup has been swirling around City Hall ever since said unions worked overtime to get Miller elected in 2003, a report only surfaced in November of 2005.

That report said it would cost a minimum of $21.5 million to bring curbside collection and recycling in York and Etobicoke -- the only two areas of the city where it contracted to an outside company -- back under City Hall's wing. Capital startup costs for the city of York (to purchase and maintain 21 trucks) were estimated at $5.2 million.

The plan, considered too hot to handle in an election year, was put on hold last July when council voted to extend the outside contract in the city of York one more year.

It was not at all a surprise when the plan to bring York's garbage pickup back in house resurfaced at yesterday's public works committee meeting -- the first step before it goes to council at month's end.

Typically it was long on spin and short on details. Never mind. Pragmatism rules.

Now it seems the $5.2-million in capital costs and the extra $361,115 in operating costs to let the CUPE take over garbage pickup in York has disappeared as if by magic. We heard more than once yesterday that by handing the contract back to the city's in-house unions, the city will save at least $4 million per year starting in 2008.

How so? Well this is where things start to get very fuzzy.

Deputy city manager Richard Butts said they've gotten "economies of scale, efficiencies" by standardizing the city's (trash routes) and closing some works yards. Apparently now they can do the York routes with existing staff and trucks!

No numbers were provided on what those existing resources cost. Councillors only saw the projected savings figure.

It left me wondering what the heck these surplus unionized workers are doing at the moment if there's enough manpower to staff 15 or more garbage trucks. Can you imagine how much fat would be found in the system if the six-figure bureaucrats took continuous improvement seriously?

Asked for a comparison on the costs per tonne to pick up garbage in Etobicoke and York vs. the other parts of Toronto where city forces do the job, Butts said they haven't "looked at that in a while." The last time they did look at it (in 2002) there were wide fluctuations between York at $44.28 per tonne and Toronto/East York at $73.45 per tonne. In 2005 the only comparison provided to me was between Etobicoke at $56.99 per tonne and Scarborough at $66.40 per tonne.

The costs alone should make council think twice. But there's another reason all of the city's garbage services should not be brought in-house. The CUPE union already rules the roost at City Hall. I don't even want to think how they'd hold the city ransom (with a crippling garbage strike) if they didn't get all of their precious contract concessions.

Miller isn't talking about bringing Etobicoke's trash collection in house at the moment.

"My guess is Etobicoke would not be contracted in because we would have to buy a new fleet. The costs aren't worth it," Miller told the Sun's editorial board before the election.

Rest assured it's on the menu. I believe it's just a matter of time before the unions have it all.

At least 90% of Ontario municipalities contract out their garbage. The figures are similar for the entire country.

Forget about details. Don't even suggest pragmatism. At socialist City Hall, the trash talk is flowing but good.