Rocco Rossi says the municipal garbage strike that ended a year ago was "a fight over who runs Toronto, the unions or the people."
With Christie Pits Park as his backdrop Wednesday, July 28, the mayoral candidate said Mayor David Miller's administration lost the fight, making no gains for citizens after 39 days of stink and inconvenience."This week a year ago, City Hall caved. It caved long before the citizens of Toronto were prepared to give up," said Rossi, standing by the park's outdoor ice rink which had been among the first of many temporary dumps created for the strike.Privatizing the city's garbage collection would mean "no more garbage strikes ever, and savings in the millions of dollars a year," he said, adding Etobicoke's residential collection service, contracted out since 1996, is saving taxpayers $10 million annually.Etobicoke's collectors are unionized, but the contract doesn't allow work stoppages."Most experts," Rossi said, would say the rest of Toronto can save at least $20 million if its waste collection was privately run after Dec. 31, 2011, when the city's contract with Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 expires.The union would be free to bid for the contract itself and no jobs need be lost in the transition, he said.But Joe Pantalone, a rival candidate and the city's deputy mayor, said Rossi's vows of "never again" allowing a garbage strike in Toronto displays his ignorance."He's showing the fact that he's never been elected to anything and he doesn't understand how government and labour laws work."Unless Rossi's "running for God," Pantalone argued, those laws will allow unionized workers for private companies to strike, as the province's DriveTest examiners and York Region's Viva transit operators both did recently.If the city privatizes waste collection - which Rossi and other contenders for mayor have said they might do - it would no longer have the trucks, transfer stations or trained workforce if it changes its mind."We would be in effect captive to the private sector," Pantalone said.The deputy mayor said what he learned from the strike "is really nobody wins," including the workers who lost wages and communities who put up with aggravation. "Everyone should take a cold shower before the next negotiations reach that kind of a breaking point."Dave Hewitt, vice president of CUPE 416, said the city's waste-collection employees "take pride in their job" and a decision to bring the privatized former City of York into the municipal collection system proved cheaper and more efficient than contracting it out."A contractor's all about making money," and will "low ball" bids to get in the door, Hewitt warned this week, adding the union and its members are willing to work with anyone but are concerned about a pro-privatization candidate becoming mayor."They're worried. They know what's going on."Rossi said he's seeking "cooperation, not confrontation" with city unions but would not flinch if they oppose him. "I'm here to defend the interests of Torontonians... and I will stick with that," he said.