City
City of Toronto offers buyouts to almost 50,000 workers
In yet another measure to reduce the 2012 budget, the City of Toronto has offered buyout packages to almost 50,000 of its workers, who have until September 9th to apply online for what's being called the Voluntary Separation Program. According to a memo obtained by the Globe and Mail, union members are eligible for three weeks pay for each year they've been employed by the city up to a maximum of six months salary. Those who hold management positions are offered four weeks of pay per year.
In an effort to extend the cost savings of the program in the long term, should an employee take the offer, his or her position will eliminated permanently. How exactly this provision will play out if scores of staff participate in the program remains unclear. As Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam noted on Twitter last night, "A city can't work without city workers!"
City Council will vote on the buyout packages in late September.
Photo by squirrel brand in the blogTO Flickr pool.
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those who are young, talented, smart and able will leave the sinking ship, take the package, a vacation and find employment elsewhere.
those who are not so young, not so talented, not so smart and not so able will stay right where they are - for fear of not finding a good job again.
this city is f'ed.
Ugh. You Ford people. Is there any populist BS you won't swallow?
I still don't understand how Transit City has been cancelled, without consulting Council, but apparently it has. We know that the city was on the hook for tens or millions of dollars stemming from that, but lets see the numbers.
Journalists? Activists? Lawyers? Help!
When the city makes this offer they know that most people aren't going to take it. So in order to get the numbers they are expecting they offer it to a much larger group. As Canada post found out, this is a dangerous game to play.
That's what a populist run city looks like. And they still do not see the problem. As long as the suburban middle and upper class have their homes, cars and big box stores nothing else matters. They will continue to vote for people like Rob Ford.
Rely more on landfills? Stop the expansion of bike lanes? Contract out more work, thus transferring work and taxpayer dollars to lower-paid employees with fewer benefits who can then contribute even less back into the overall economy? End water fluoridation? Is this seriously the best the consultants could come up with? Is this seriously what our supposed budget hawk of a mayor missed over his years on council, hectoring everyone else about expenditures? This, at best, won't even close this year's budget gap.
News flash: this is a city of millions of people, who demand and require a wide array of services. It's expensive. Expect to spend money on infrastructure and good services so that individuals and organizations can build upon that base for greater economic expansion and benefit. Improving the efficiency of service delivery is one thing, and offering buyouts to employees isn't the worst way in the world to reduce staffing levels, but this doesn't sound like it was planned properly in advance. Council won't even get a chance to review the plan until it's already well in progress, and if it's as well-designed as the rest of Ford's proposals, it will backfire. His judgment, in general, has proven to be horrible (drunken, boorish behaviour at a Leafs game? DUI? actively ignoring one of the city's most popular festivals? tossing aside an entire transit plan so he can have a subway... that he's not sure how to even pay for? just to name a few incidents). That 50% of the people who turned up to vote had no problem choosing a guy with that track record to the top decision-making job in town makes me grimace, but I'll muddle through the next few years. I have a running bet with myself regarding the state of the city by the end of Ford's current term. For the sake of us all, I hope to lose.
I am sure you will all agree that it is better to cut things like a measly vehicle tax than it is to employ 50 000 of your fellow citizens!
*This message has been brought to you by Rob Ford.
Rob knows you what KPMG doesn't. You need to cut the fat, not get rid of tiny things like cutting snow plows from the end of driveways.
The City will take a long time to recover from the damage done by Ford and his Executive Committee.
Wonder why your 311 calls are not being answered? It's because graffiti complaints are taking up hundreds of hours of staff time (311 customer service staff, senior management in different departments, frontline staff, etc...) - what a great way to address city priorities! Waste it on graffiti while other important issues are ignored...
Toronto is suffering because of these idiots.. We need other Councillors to stand up and be the stewards we need for the City!
Whether it's postal workers, TTC employees, city or Queen's Park officials, the disease is the same. I have seen many of their credit applications and its scary what these people make. Their attitudes suck when you have to deal with them on and they are the 'client,' and if you try to get them to actually do their job at their end, it's an exercise in beating a dead horse. There is something about working for the government. Maybe it's the water, maybe it's the union mentality, but the hew hires with their ambition and drive just have the marrow sucked out of them within a few years. Cut out the old rot and save the tree.
Unfortunately, there won't be any immediate cost savings by making this offer, and it will surely require a lot of re-arranging of departments to fill in the blanks, but I guarantee that if done properly we won't miss one bit of 'service' from the city. It will also put the rest of the workers on notice that things are going to be different. You see, those employees who constantly bitch about how stressed they are and how over-worked - well, just think about how much better that office or department would be with those whiners gone. Everyone else can actually get on with their jobs.
It's possible that the job losses may have a small impact on the local economy, but some of these people will already have something else lined up before they take the package (that is, if the private sector would hire them, I know I wouldn't), but you have to ask yourself this question: how many of them actually live in Toronto anyway?
Since this crowd hates everything and anything to do with the filthy 905ers and their ilk, you guys should be thrilled. Quite a few of these entitled workers don't even live in the city they work for.
You have nothing to go on but the idea someone makes more then you do.
You are the whiner, bitter, with childish tantrums because you can't get what you want. So you rant about taking it away from others.
Time to grow up live with what you got. taking from others is not going to give you want you think you deserve.
Any goof can cut services and and raise taxes.
For the so called great businessmen the Ford brothers claim to be I have yet to see that claim proven so far.
It is always the people on the lower scale who get the shaft , because there are more of them and it sure didn't take much to convince people that just about all city employees are lazy and are paid too much with no mention of what those people actually do to keep the city running.
All he had to say was gravy train and people flocked to put an x to Mr>Fords name for mayor.
But reality has come home to most people and there is no gravy train other than the gravy enjoyed by the upper middle and lower management, and there are so many of them you would be shocked to know the numbers.
Nothing is going to change there but ironically none of them are unionized and could be replaced or have their pay brought back to earth.
This is not going to happen because Rob Ford does not know what he is doing and is just a wind bag.
Were he could make real change he seems to leave those employees alone as if they are sacred cows, go figure.
When ford discussed cutting the gravy train, what he reaally meant was cutting programs like after school programs, and he he done just that. Ford has demonstrated time and again that he is arrogant and does not care. And when he missappropriated funds for his football team, did he not prove that? What burns me are the people that voted for this weasel, and now, they are the same ones belly aching. Want to trim the fat, trim his job in the next election.
But we have capatalism, and for the system to work, you need the devision of rich and poor. Charles Darwin summed it up best "Survival Of The fittest"
You need to remember that the vast majority of voters in Ontario and Toronto are not well versed in politics and will vote for anyone of these ..... intellects that says something that appeals to them. They do not look at teh party and what these ........ represent.
A good case in point would be in the mid to late 90s when Harris was premeir of Ontario. Everyone liked what he said and voted for him. And everyone suffered, especially the less fortunate. And Hudak represents that same mentality.