Layoffs are legitimate option for Ford’s imperfect office

Mayor Rob Ford has a clear message for the city’s employees: We can’t afford to keep all of you on staff. If enough of you don’t take the buyout package the city is offering (three weeks’ pay for each year of service, and four weeks per year for managers), the city will reduce its staff level through layoffs.

It’s a stark change from his earlier tune. Before being elected, Mayor Ford said early and often that the size of the city’s workforce could be brought down with natural attrition, with no need for layoffs. Staff who left would simply not be replaced, and high-priority departments could be kept at full-strength by shuffling resources internally. The yearly attrition rate for the city’s government was given as 6% a year, which would have helped put a swift dent in the city’s 53,000-strong workforce.

It turns out the rate of attrition is less than half of that. Hence the buyout offer, and the threat of layoffs. Appearing on Sun News on Friday, Mayor Ford asked, “What else can we do?”

If employees don’t take the package. It’s either a tax hike of 25-30%, the Mayor said, or layoffs. He might not be eager for the latter, but he clearly prefers it to his tax-hiking alternative.

There are those who would champion layoffs, and delight in them should they occur. The more ideological supporters of Mayor Ford — Ford Nation, as it were — would probably clap with glee when the first round of pink slips were mailed out.

That’s uncalled for. No one should cheer another person’s livelihood coming to an end. Every lost job is a blow to the person’s sense of self-worth and to their family’s security.

But layoffs of staff, while nothing to celebrate, are a legitimate option. Every member of the public service serves at the pleasure of the public, as represented by their elected representatives. Toronto’s current government is imperfect, but it’s legitimate, and the city does indeed need to cut spending. Layoffs should be the last option — but they are an option.

A government job is not, and should never have been considered, a right. The city owes no citizen a livelihood, no matter how nice they are. If the city’s fiscal situation requires a reduced workforce, that’s all there is to it. The public-sector should not be immune from the same economic realities at play in the broader economy.

Toronto should pay the best wages it can afford to to as many employees as it needs. Just because something is taxpayer funded doesn’t mean it has infinite resources, as has too often been the assumption. Indeed, it ought to mean the exact opposite.

No one should relish the idea of cutbacks in the city’s workforce. Layoffs would be painful for a lot of people. But if the city’s fiscal health requires them, then with appropriate regret, the cutbacks must begin.

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Source: National Post