City
Queen West to Be Garbage Free
The garbage is piling up and the strike continues so three Queen West BIAs have pooled their resources to keep Queen Street from University to Roncesvalles free and clear of litter. According to today's press release Mark the Litter Guy will be leading the effort, organizing a team of volunteers to do a sweep of one of Toronto's marquee streets. In exchange, Mark will receive at least 3 days pay each week and the thanks of a grateful community.
Two years ago in the wake of city cutbacks to the sanitation force Mark was collecting an average of 80 bags of trash daily. I can only imagine the quantity of bags Mark and his team will collect in the wake of a strike.
With the bags to be stored by the West Queen West BIA - potentially at Woolfitt's Art Supply (either that or Woolfitt's is simply paying for wherever it will be stored, the release isn't clear) - I'm only left wondering how big a turn off (aka smell, rats, bugs) one big pile will be, or if it will get hauled to a dump often enough to prevent those concerns.
In any case, the Queen West, West Queen West and Parkdale BIAs are on to something and I suspect that Mark and his team will make the street even cleaner than it is during non-strike times.
Now if only the BIAs could afford Mark beyond the month-long commitment. Maybe then he wouldn't depend on as many donations and would have time to update his blog a bit more often.
Photo "garbage strike" by wvs, member of the blogTO flickr pool.
Discussion
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On the other hand, it's nice to see that the local BIAs are planning a clean-up of Queen W. I work in that area and it's like people have blinders on - I see them trying to shove take out containers into overflowing bins. Where do you think your garbage is going?
I really wish CUPE would just accept the offer they got from the city. I think it's more than fair and this has gone on long enough.
"he's basically scab labour during the strike" — so what?
Mark didn't make Christie Pits a dump site, and him picking another spot wouldn't empty the hockey rink that's already brimming.
I think you should do a little research into Mark the Litter Guy before you rip him apart. The Guy has been faithfully cleaning up the streets with only donations for years. He definitely isn't motivated by money.
I too live near Christie pits but am gratefull as a small business owner on Queen West for all the efforts he makes.
Do you honestly, for one moment, believe the picketers would let him through at a transfer station?
This, combined with the 500+ workers that WANT to go back to work (http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/07/13/10111311-sun.html) should indicate to the unions that this strike needs to stop, immediately.
It's past a point of principle. It's now about practicality and doing what needs to be done in an economic climate where the vast majority of us are feeling the pinch.
If I see you while I am in Queen Street West, you get a coffee/lunch on me.
The garbage down this way doesn't seem to be all that bad though. People have been good at refraining from illegally dumping garbage anywhere. The only real problem seems to be the street side garbage bins due to the aged and smelling(though not overflowing) garbage.
Anyway, how is that an argument - waiting at the picket line is too much hassle so everyone should just dump in their nearest park?!
And nobody said 'just dump in their nearest park' - Christie Pits, for better or worse, was a real city-sanctioned dump site. That's nothing near illegal dumping.
I know a cuty worker who has gone back essentially for those reasons, though he did not support the strike to begin with.
Just responding to one thing in the initial story
"With the bags to be stored by the West Queen West BIA - potentially at Woolfitt's Art Supply (either that or Woolfitt's is simply paying for wherever it will be stored, the release isn't clear) "
The three BIA's are actually sharing the cost of shipping the refuse from Woolfitt's to appropriate waste management sites whenever the bins fill up.
The garbage will most certainly not pile up at Woolfitts or anywhere else in the BIAs
NOTE: Up till now Mark has simply tied his full bags to the city Bins, or thrown them straight into the collection trucks when they are nearby (the City workers have always supported him in his efforts to help deal with litter).
change your handle to moron
what harm can it do?
c = citizen
a = accepting
b = business
we need more scabs
scabs are sexy
This strike has made opened my eyes to how little the average internet reader knows about labour relations. No wonder so many of you are complaining about your own lives, none of you seem to understand a collective bargaining process let alone realize the benefits of such a process.
Explain to me how a collective bargaining process justifies stopping city services and preventing citizens from taking care of it themselves. Explain to me how a collective bargaining process makes it ok for unions to say "unless I get what I want, EVERYONE suffers!"
You can label Mark a SCAB, it's just a word. Like PETA labelling omnivores "killers" and me labelling picketers "self-righteous a-holes hostage takers".
also there are two sides to this bargaining process, union and management. both sides are failing to come to an agreement.
I feel like your attitude is summarized by your inference that unions are saying "unless I get what I want everyone suffers" I know this is difficult to determine when you are most worried about how you personally are affected but the striking workers are probably suffering the most. Unless they see a 4% increase or more the striking workers will not benefit financially from this strike, in fact they will lose money. the longer the workers stay out, the more they lose.
What we gain from collective bargaining processes? It is sad that I have to point this out in the 21st century but I suppose I will - we maintain human rights that have been fought for over the last century. It is clear from the majority of comments that most people do not understand the struggle of labourers over time to gain access to basic rights in the labour force such as sick leave, statutory holidays (they weren't always statutory), pension plans, medical benefits, pay equity, eliminating sexual harrasment, etc.
in this case the workers are simply trying to maintain benefits they fought for not win new benefits.
It seems the only to avoid being called lazy these days is to go back to being a feudal serf, fighting for scraps from the harvest.
Finally I am not labelling Mark a scab, the definition of scab is doing that for me. I think Mark is selfless and amazing, I would love to see the city hire him permanently and compensate him properly complete w/ medical benefits, pension possibility and vacation time.
I am not interested in engaging in rhetoric that sounds like - I work at walmart and my life sucks so everyone who has it better is lazy, overpaid, and ungrateful.
Calling someone a "scab" is an insult. Your post could easily replace the word "scab" with any other slur intended to insult someone doing a job or action, as Mike W points out, it doesn't make it right. Like arguing the use of racial slurs is ok since the person they are hurled at fits the stereotype.
I second the call for your explanation of the benefits of a public sector union striking. Are we all going to get fat raises and improved benefits? Please, the middle class has seen its wages go up very scantly in the last 20 years, the unions have been making out like bandits. Where are the benefits? Or maybe you just meant benefits to the union workers.
It's sad the striking workers are suffering the most, only because not all of them want to be striking. That they suffer the greatest from this strike is squarely the fault of the union. By no means should it matter that a 4% raise makes it profitable for them. I'm actually offended if this is relevant.
It's funny, I'm un-unionized and my employer treats me rather well. It must be the twilight zone! As posters have pointed out unions have been necessary in the PAST but today they're used selfishly and for no one's benefit except their own, and that includes their own members.
And guess what, it also matters nothing that you're and non-unionized Walmart employee, because that doesn't mean YOU'RE carrying any special torch either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcjob
And pirate is termed used by pirates in a non derogatory manner. They do not consider it an insult. Comparison FAIL.
Mark rocks!
You want a 5% pay increase? Guess who's supposed to pay for that: the same people you're pissing off with blockades at dump sites, putting at risk by blocking suction trucks and pest-sprayers, the small business owners who'll take yet another hit when tourism numbers drop because you covered the city with garbage in peak tourist season, etc.
Scabs are just doing the job *we already pay you to do but you refuse to perform*.
Lots of things were useful in the past and caused great change and benefit but we still don't use them as now they are obsolete. You don't expand on your point because you have nothing. You can't say how a striking public sector employee helps a private sector employee. We still have wage freezes, lay-offs and long hours to survive in a changing world. No public sector job ever bases its wage on what the public sector job earns. CUPE workers have improving wages, no layoffs and wage increases, now they strike in bad economic times and how does the regular Joe get benefits?
Unions will strike themselves out of existence, especially in fields doing simple menial labour. It is a dangerous game to play as technology advances and people are able to jobs that once required two or more people and/or we start replacing people with machines.
Pirate is a proper term for a person who is a brigand. Scab is a colloquial term for a STRIKEBREAKER. Pick up a dictionary in between those history and current event lessons.
I refuse to accept that citizens picking up their own garbage or volunteering to clear public space,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqMn4gEe00
or BIAs contracting out to the likes of MTLG is scab labour since neither the citizens nor BIA are able to negotiate with CUPE.
I was walking along Ashbridges Bay Beach on Saturday and the mess is awful - but there is another lesson to this strike:
1. Torontonians, many of them, are pigs
2. Because of 1, CUPE416 folks have a job cleaning parks and beachs and for no other reason.