Rossi vows city will never be held hostage by garbage strike again
admin | Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | 3 Comments »Candidate showing he doesn’t understand government, opponent Pantalone says
Rocco Rossi says the municipal garbage strike that ended a year ago was “a fight over who runs Toronto, the unions or the people.”
With Christie Pits Park as his backdrop Wednesday, July 28, morning, the mayoral candidate said Mayor David Miller’s administration lost the fight, making no gains for citizens after 39 days of stink and inconvenience.“This week a year ago, City Hall caved. It caved long before the citizens of Toronto were prepared to give up,” said Rossi, standing by the park’s outdoor ice rink which had been among the first of many temporary dumps created for the strike.
Privatizing the city’s garbage collection would mean “no more garbage strikes ever, and savings in the millions of dollars a year,” he said, adding Etobicoke’s residential collection service, contracted out since 1996, is saving taxpayers $10 million annually.
Etobicoke’s collectors are unionized, but the contract doesn’t allow work stoppages.
“Most experts,” Rossi said, would say the rest of Toronto can save at least $20 million if its waste collection was privately run after Dec. 31, 2011, when the city’s contract with Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 expires.
The union would be free to bid for the contract itself and no jobs need be lost in the transition, he said.
But Joe Pantalone, a rival candidate and the city’s deputy mayor, said Rossi’s vows of “never again” allowing a garbage strike in Toronto displays his ignorance.
“He’s showing the fact that he’s never been elected to anything and he doesn’t understand how government and labour laws work.”
Unless Rossi’s “running for God,” Pantalone argued, those laws will allow unionized workers for private companies to strike, as the province’s DriveTest examiners and York Region’s Viva transit operators both did recently.
If the city privatizes waste collection – which Rossi and other contenders for mayor have said they might do – it would no longer have the trucks, transfer stations or trained workforce if it changes its mind.
“We would be in effect captive to the private sector,” Pantalone said.
The deputy mayor said what he learned from the strike “is really nobody wins,” including the workers who lost wages and communities who put up with aggravation.
“Everyone should take a cold shower before the next negotiations reach that kind of a breaking point.”
Dave Hewitt, vice president of CUPE 416, said the city’s waste-collection employees “take pride in their job” and a decision to bring the privatized former City of York into the municipal collection system proved cheaper and more efficient than contracting it out.
“A contractor’s all about making money,” and will “low ball” bids to get in the door, Hewitt warned this week, adding the union and its members are willing to work with anyone but are concerned about a pro-privatization candidate becoming mayor.
“They’re worried. They know what’s going on.”
Rossi said he’s seeking “cooperation, not confrontation” with city unions but would not flinch if they oppose him. “I’m here to defend the interests of Torontonians… and I will stick with that,” he said.
- Mike Adler
My husband works for Turtle Island Recycling, the company that is responsible for the Etobicoke Garbage Pickup and I have to say that I’m very disapointed in Rossi’s information collecting abilities, since TIR is NOT unionized. They had a union vote a few years ago but it never went through.
I also live in Etobicoke so I can’t really comment on how bad the garbage strike was last year but I can tell you what I heard and that was a simple ‘this has gone on too long’ and ‘it’s got to end soon’ so I don’t know where he’s getting the idea that the strike ended before the people of Toronto were ready for it to end.
Also, his request for cooperation, not confrontation is ridiculous. How would he react if his job was under threat? Would you smile and shake hands with the bloke responsible for it or would you drag your heels and fight him all the way?
During the last 8 years councillors and the outgoing mayor have Increased Taxes Over the actual rate of inflation by almost 20%, which is not a prudence practice with taxpayer’s money.
A new mayor and council must ensure that all departmental spending is capped at the rate of inflation and further all budgets must be done on zero based budgeting process commencing with the 2011 budget any new mayor and new councillors as a minimum start in the right direction to correct Toronto’s fiscal crisis.
During the last 8 years councillors and the outgoing mayor have Increased Taxes Over the actual rate of inflation by almost 20%, which is not a prudence practice with taxpayer’s money.
A new mayor and council must ensure that all departmental spending is capped at the rate of inflation and further all budgets must be done on zero based budgeting process commencing with the 2011 budget any new mayor and new councillors as a minimum start in the right direction to correct Toronto’s fiscal crisis. http://peterclarketoronto.com
The people are united from the suburbs to the city core that SPENDING must be brought under control and that the outgoing mayor and incumbent councillors of the past 15 to 25 years MUST GO!
Incumbent councillors have shown their complete lack of prudence for taxpayer money as witnessed by their increased spending by 60% in ten years while inflation rose only 23% for the same period.
Incumbent Councillors spending for their self given Golden Severance Package at a cost of $4,999,236 MILLION dollars or $113,519 per councillor upon their defeat at the polls, which is twice that established for Ontario workers was yet another example of their arrogance and self serving greed which greatly attributed to the city’s fiscal crisis.
Instead of stopping spending Toronto incumbent councillors wanted to control our lifestyles by attempting to micro-managing personal choices and freedoms down to the level of a soft drink, french fries and salt etc. under the guise of taking care of us through larger and larger government control.
Couple this with Toronto Hydro’s outright deceptive conduct when they voted to deceitfully increase electricity prices so it could hand over fat payments to cash hungry and fiscally inept City of Toronto the people are finally beginning to see red.
In my opinion they neglected their legal individual fiduciary responsibilities and duties to customers by diverting funds needed by the utility for its system reliability by deceitfully increasing unwarranted dividend payments to the city of Toronto, as recently ruled by Ontario’s Court of Appeal.
“Toronto One City, Your Vote, Our Future Together, Begins on October 25, 2010.”