City
Morning Brew: Harper Pockets Communion (or Does He?), No More Drugs in Kensington (Really?), Jays Dump BJ Ryan (Halladay Next?)
Photo: "Street Life" by Jim U, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Pages is closing. Owner Marc Glassman tells NOW Magazine that the city's most-loved bookstore will be closing its doors on August 31st. (Previous coverage)
The garbage is going to keep piling up for a while as the striking unions have made it clear they're not accepting a year-long pay freeze and a mere 1% increase in the second year of any deal. Mayor Miller is trying to stand his ground but after announcing yesterday that the bargaining team has been authorized to be more flexible, so it sounds like it will be the city who bends (or breaks) first in the current stalemate. Good thing we've had unseasonably cool weather; the last thing we need is a string of 30+ degree days right now.
A month-long drug sweep by Toronto police has netted 76 arrests, 200 charges and a pile of drugs from King West and Kensington area drug dealers and buyers. Too bad there weren't a lot of hidden cameras - "Project Escape" sounds like a great reality tv show.
Did he or didn't he? Video from Romeo LeBlanc's funeral shows Stephen Harper receiving a communion wafer and apparently pocketing it, not exactly the proper way to treat his Host. Naturally, Harper's people say he would never do such a thing, but the explanation does not go so far as to shed light on why a Protestant was taking Roman Catholic communion.
The Jays have officially given up on B.J. Ryan, who leapt out of the gate as an ineffective closer, and after wearing out a patch in the bench found his way onto the disabled list. After making B.J. rich, now the Jays are hoping another team picks him up as there are several years and a lot of money left on his deal. More worrisome for Jays fans though is news that the Jays may be giving up not just on the season but on their ability to put a winner around ace Roy Halladay. Buster Olney of ESPN.com predicts we may see Halladay in a Phillies jersey by the end of the month. The Star's Richard Griffin says don't believe everything you hear, but don't count on JP making a great deal, either.
Rouge Valley Health System has been hoodwinked, swindled out of $2 million over the course of 8 years by youth services workers who invoiced, shall we say, generously? A tad over 10 years since the fraud started police nabbed one of their guys, which sort of makes me wonder what made the hospital notice now that something was amiss?
Japanese royalty is in our midst. Emperor Akihito and his wife Empress Michiko are in town and staying at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. They'll visit Sick Kids and have shaken hands but I'm more curious if they'll dine at Benihana in the Royal York basement.
Discussion
24 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
We're out of Afghanistan next year, and he just ordered 5 Billion worth of light armour vehicles. WTF? I didn't realize training in CFB Kingston was so dangerous.
One more reason not to go back.
Selfish? You think the city of Toronto and the people calling for a stop to this ridiculous self serving strike in the midst of a recession are selfish?
i'm a student and i'm depending on my summer job with the city for tuition money, and i'm not allowed to picket to get the measly $40 a day. i'm not the only person in this situation but it seems like the city and CUPE could care less that they're incoveniencing so many people. how is this justified? someone please explain to me why the city unions have to act like 5 year old to get their way. strikes should be illegal.
Or getting permanent substitute workers.
Would you prefer next time our soldiers ride in golf carts and bicycles?
Or getting permanent substitute workers."
Answer: Having a city council with balls.
Or getting permanent substitute workers."
Let's for a moment pretend this were actually possible. I sincerely doubt it is; you can't fire somebody for going on a legal strike, so you'd have to find some other legal grounds for firing them all.
Let's also pretend you could somehow avoid paying 24,000 hefty severance packages to all these people you're proposing we let go. And let's ignore the strain on social services and general damage to the economy from turning 24,000 people with good jobs into 24,000 unemployed people.
Now all that's left is the monumentally expensive and time-consuming task of hiring 24,000 new workers, and/or putting dozens (hundreds?) of city services out to tender for private contracts.
Of course this entire plan hinges on the assumption that all the strikers are untrained monkeys who can be easily replaced, and that mobs of people will be lining up to do the jobs at a fraction of the wage with no benefits. In fact, many of the strikers are engineers and nurses and things of that nature. And with unemployment still in the single digits, most people have better employment options than stinky back-breaking garbage work for 10 bucks an hour.
So, in short: it's not a solution, so can we please stop pretending that it is?
As to severance, that would only apply to workers who have worked 5 years or longer, would be dependent on their contributions to the company's development and would vary greatly worker to worker. This cost could easily be covered by the savings in sick day banking alone not to mention the savings of reduced salaries.
As for 24,000 unemployed people, wouldn't be 24,000 empty jobs much longer and since that would be from already unemployed people it is a wash, social services and the economy would be unaffected.
Hiring 24,000 workers is time-consuming, but how many could we have hired in the last 17 days or so of work stoppage? Putting out tenders is also time-consuming but it is how the city should be run anyway. We could also reduce the number of administrators since the companies contracted would handle much of the paperwork now left to the city.
As for untrained monkeys; most of the workers are drivers and labourers, unless you are assuming the only people who would apply are untrained monkeys then I think we could find to people to do general labour, ticket-taking and truck driving. Garbage collecting is far from back-breaking as it is all automated, the worker doesn't even get out of his seat now, a robotic arm grabs the cans. If they can find factory workers for 10 bucks an hour (and many, many employers do), they can find garbage workers for that.
So, it may not currently be a solution to replace the workers on strike but the objections you pose are not so insurmountable. I still maintain that the unions have rights the employer is forbidden because the owner doesn't have the right NOT to associate which is the logical corollary to the union's right to associate.
6 Chinook helicopters out of 16 will be used in Afghanistan and the bulk of the armoured vehicle purchase will be between 2013-2016, well after we have left. We will still have a need for a well-equipped army after the Afghan mission.
While I believe the argument is in favour of public transportation being an infrastructure project worthy of so-called stimulus funds, Toronto knowingly broke the rules and didn't file properly. 2800 other applications were filed correctly, what was our city's problem? They couldn't have filled out the 1 request they made properly? They couldn't have made proper requests to fix our crumbling roads, sewers and water mains? Then used future budget money earmarked for those projects to cover funding on the streetcars? They only wanted 1/3 from Ottawa, they couldn't have carried that?
Reagan was able to do what he did because the air traffic controllers were federal employees and the strike was therefore illegal.
If the services here are declared essential then the rules will change and strike/lock out can be banned. However, arbitration tends to hugely favour workers who are devoid of their right to strike.
I agree with you that given current circumstances it is pointless to demand it, I just believe that it is possible to privatize the services and get rid of the union as other municipalities have done it. I also wish we would.