Green Bin Program A Mess

Toronto garbage workers have been routinely mixing green bin organics with regular trash that is trucked to a Michigan landfill, say city employees interviewed by the Star.
The workers – who return to work today after a five-week strike – say this occurs at those transfer stations where all types of garbage are first brought after collection from homes.
A former manager in a transfer station confirmed he had seen this happen and that some managers allow the practice to get rid of the enormous amount of green bin waste produced by Torontonians.

"It is wrong," says the man, who, like the other workers, asked that his
name not be used for fear of losing his job. "The public is separating their food and doing all this work and here we are, tossing it all in the garbage anyway."

Get the full story from thestar.com

It's a sad day in Millers Toronto when these, greedy garbage workers aren't even doing their overpaid jobs properly. Way to go Miller. Enjoy your last year in office.

Banked sick days in city offer

Unionized city employees will continue to bank pay for unused sick days under a contract offer being voted on today.

However, a last-minute glitch in talks with one of the two striking CUPE locals means that only the inside workers began voting this morning on whether to ratify the deal.

CUPE Local 416, which represents outside workers including trash collectors, indefinitely postponed a vote set to begin at 7 a.m. today because negotiators hadn't signed a memorandum of agreement to end the strike, or negotiated a back-to-work protocol following the tentative agreement reached early Monday morning. Full Story

In other words we just went through a stinky month with no pools or daycare for NOTHING! Way to go Miller. I won't be forgetting this at election time and I will be reminding those who do forget.

City dropped all concessions, union says

CUPE Local 416 president Mark Ferguson said today that the union fought back all of the concessions the city had sought but one councillor says that if that is true, Mayor David Miller has some explaining to do.

Ferguson wouldn't give specifics of the tentative deal reached with the city early today, but said that the support of his members gave the "bargaining committee the ability to fight back all of the concessions," the city sought.

"As I have said from the beginning, we will end this strike like we began," he told a news conference this morning at the Scarborough hotel where his local's negotiation took place.

Pat Daley, a spokesperson for Local 416, backed up Ferguson's statement that the union had managed to "fight back all of the concessions the city sought from us."

All 118 pages of concessions? she was asked.

"Yes," she said.

Full Story at thestar.com

If this is true, Miller obviously is not concerned about this city, nor does he want to try to get re-elected.

Everyone is happy this strike is over, but it appears the unions have won at the expense of the taxpayer. It's time to privatize the trash pick up and give the work to people who are willing to work for a competitive wages.

Deal Reached In City Strike

Negotiators for the city and its two striking unions have reached an agreement after more than a month of a civic workers strike.

Mark Ferguson, president of Local 416 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, made the announcement at about 8:30 a.m. but did not provide further details. Get the full story at thestar.com

Miller says back-to-work order would hurt T.O.

Mayor David Miller says an arbitrated settlement in the 31-day-old civic strike would cause huge budget problems for the city in the months ahead and could possibly lead to layoffs.

"Every time there's been an arbitrated settlement, the cost of that settlement has been very high," he said at a Wednesday news conference in city hall, pointing to Toronto police officers being awarded three-per-cent hikes.

If Toronto's 24,000 unionized workers were given a 12 per cent wage hike over four years, there would be service cuts and the ability to hire young people would be restricted, he said. Source: CTV News

Miller may say that legislation to force the city workers back would hurt Toronto, but what he really means is it would hurt him. It is pretty obvious to anyone that he's made back room deals with the unions or else this strike would not have happened. Miller can take full credit for ruining the all to short summer of the children and families of Toronto.

Strike Update

Toronto garbage strike 2009. Day 30

City News reports on strike news. The Moss Park temporary dump shown in the video above is about one block from my office and is just one of many disgusting, rat infested dumps around the city.