The city’s proposed budget for 2012 finally shows that the election slogan of “No service cuts, guaranteed!” was never meant to be honoured. For there are cuts all round — in nearly every city department, in community and arts grants, in services for the poor, in transit service, in library hours . . . the list goes on and on.The mayor and his supporters have made it clear that their objective is to dramatically shrink city government, cut its workforce and outsource as many jobs as possible. To justify that, they “invented a crisis” with a deficit number that has been fictional since the day after its inception, along with deliberate cuts to city revenue.
Now there is a stunning list of cuts outlined to the different city services, along with more user fees. It is clear that none of these cuts need to be made — but the mayor’s office has made choices and expects councillors to fall in line with these choices. Closing a shelter for seniors in Scarborough, swimming pools in east Toronto, and less ice time in Weston represent minimal cost savings, but each are important for our communities.
City workers are clearly the main target, and there is an open disdain for what happens to their lives. Of the 2,300 positions being eliminated, 160 work in our library system. Another 324 are transit workers. Then there is the ongoing plan to outsource hundreds of cleaning positions — turning jobs that pay enough to raise a family into poverty wage jobs. The work will go to private cleaning companies, some of which are global in scale, while others are cutthroat operations that have a history of exploiting immigrants and violating employment standards.
There is a lot of money at stake and tremendous profit to be made in the plans of the Ford administration. It is a well-rehearsed script being presented — sell off public assets, reduce public services and contract out jobs. Since the bid for solid waste was awarded this fall to Green For Life, it has now merged with Turtle Island so that one company will control all residential waste pickup west of Yonge St. It remains to be seen what kind of wages and benefits are paid to the workers. We do know that millions in profit are being taken from the difference in wages; because that’s the only place it can be found.
In York Region the private transit company employees have been on strike for weeks trying to close the gap with those doing equivalent work across the GTA. But the private operators there don’t care — there is no penalty for depriving the public of this service. They are part of huge multinational companies with revenues in the billions, and so the interest of the public comes last.
What happens when you decide that jobs are worth much less than they are currently paid? The extreme example is in contract cleaning, where non-union contractors pay minimum wage with no benefits. Who can raise a family on $10.25 an hour? What will be the effect of some $20 million less in wages for the cleaners as they are all outsourced? How will that help any neighbourhood in Toronto?
At the same time, it is clear that services will suffer when there are fewer people to deliver them. Remember at the end of the Lastman years when people remarked on how Toronto had become a scruffier city? We are heading in the same direction, whether the deletions are white collar or blue collar jobs. Toronto has the most used library system in the world, yet even there the administration wants to cut 160 library workers.
For decades, Toronto has been a leader in responding to the social pressures of a major urban centre. From the first creation of a public health unit, to affordable housing and recreation centres, to challenging discrimination and racism, to recycling and pollution prevention, Toronto has used its institutional ability to address key issues of the day. Those who seek to diminish the city’s role are effectively turning their back on that leadership role.
It takes skill and creativity to accomplish real goals in a complex urban centre. Driving down the morale of one’s own workforce by making it clear that you can’t wait to get rid of your employees is no way to encourage dedication or excellence. The farcical exercise of the buyouts is just one example of how misguided the approach has become. So too is the scrapping of a comprehensive transit strategy to reach all corners of the city, at a cost of tens of millions of wasted dollars. Things truly have become reminiscent of the Mike Harris years.
This slash and burn budget should be rejected. City council should commit to investing in a stronger Toronto, not one less capable of caring or leading in the 21st century.
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Source: Star
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