Toronto Garbage Strike Thoughts

It's only Day 3 of the city workers' strike, but you'd think it had been several weeks already, as it has been in Windsor, with the way Torontonians are reacting, lining up at transfer stations with one bag of garbage or dumping garbage in parks or stuffing soda cans in those tapes around the sidewalk trash containers. I don't know what the big deal is at this point because our garbage is only picked up every 2 weeks; our recycling is only picked up every 2 weeks; our biodegradables are picked up weekly, which is also a long time for items that rot within a day. But that's what the city has gotten us used to; that's the level of service we've grumbingly acquiesced to. So you'd think that being obedient sheep, we'd not notice any change for about 2 weeks.

That's for householders. It's a different story for businesses like restaurants that generate mounds of rotting trash every day. From a public health point of view, you'd think the city would've figured out a way for these business owners, who really don't have time to line up until arrogant union workers let them through, to dispose of their trash quickly. But this lack of foresight marks Mayor David Miller's and City Council's response to this strike. Yes, they told us transfer stations would be open; yes, they're arranging for local dumps in a few days; yes, they've arranged for a special side door entrance at City Hall for parents using a day care there, which Miller has promptly abused, being as his time needs are more important than all those poor schmucks lining up at Bermondsey transfer station. Yet they seem to have been taken by surprise at workers blocking the entrance to the garbage dumping points. Or have they?

Miller on the Bill Carroll show this morning on CFRB sounded firm and resolute and blunt with Torontonians who're already making this dumpy city more of a dump. But he used typical legal, obfuscating language to talk about the incendiary tactics of the union at the transfer stations. He talked of taking days and days to resolve this situation, a situation that occurred in the last strike and so was perfectly foreseeable and thus preventable. Why did the city not already have in place a conduct policy for workers picketing those stations when the strike started? Why when I've seen court injuctions happen in a day, will similar efforts in this situation take till next week? Why is the security not there for the citizens of this city, but to ensure union workers get their way? I liked the boldness of one Torontonian who ignored the picket line to dump his trash and then helped an old man with his trash. Such compassion is missing in the workers' tactics and the city's entire garbage policy, of which I've ranted about in the past, a policy designed only for healthy, strong people with lots of time on their hands.

It seems to me that the prematurely pissed off attitude of Torontonians is because of that garbage policy. People suddenly see an opportunity to get rid of their garbage in a timely fashion instead of storing it for weeks on end. And, as well, perhaps it wasn't just me whose garbage wasn't picked up the week before the strike. They tell you it'll take one to two business days to pick up missed garbage (unlike same day in years past), but in reality it's the next regular garbage pickup day. Meanwhile, the city insists you keep your missed garbage outside. I guess they feel sorry for those poor garbage-diving raccoons who can never get enough. Since we haven't seen any massive garbage worker layoffs and since Toronto isn't doing massive infill housing building, then this situation is a simple drop in level of service. Less professional in their pickup; less professional in rectifying missed pickups. Meanwhile, a missed pickup has bigger ramifications than before as pickup frequencies have been quartered. Garbage missed once means garbage moulders on your property for a month.

Yet people did not protest in ways the union is protesting now to stop this downward spiral in service. Instead, like weasels in the dark, they rush to the dump sites to regain a semblance of old levels of service, only to be forced to wait for hours or not get in at all, thereby thwarting said oppportunity. They deserve it at this stage; they shouldn't have been so apathetic in the first place.

And that makes me wonder if anyone in Toronto has the guts to use this strike to make changes. I doubt citizenry are going to inundate Councillors with requests to resume old levels of service. And beyond venting their rage in polls and in illegal dumping, I doubt that citizens will give the city the kind of backing Windsorites have given their Mayor -- to take this strike as long as needed to ensure a more financially prudent contract that will allow workers to take short-term disability when truly needed. Already people are calling for the province to bring in back-to-work legislation. That means arbitration people, which means the union will get their way. Hello, wake up Torontonians! You really want your taxes to not inflate with this landmine of a sick-day-banking ball headed our way, then you gotta stick it out.

That also means Toronto citizens need to support the city, like Windsorites have theirs, by arranging, like one local Toronto resident, for neighbourhood garbage pickup, or local stations for helping people dispose of their garbage, like CFRB announced this morning, or looking after your neighbourhood parks (which is not much different than normal with parks' service dropping too over the years -- I don't know what the heck all those new hires are doing, sure as heck not looking after the city). And it means that you fellow Torontonians tell Miller loud and clear that he cannot represent the city, and, at the same time, underhandedly support the unions. If these banked sick days are really going to bankrupt the city, then he needs to roll back councillor pay increases -- show some belated leadership, for heaven's sake -- like how did this idiot not see the unions' legit grievance coming when he didn't insist on freezing Councillors' pay and gave all other workers good increases as well as ballooning the size of the civil service while stiffing non-union workers only?!!! -- and he needs to insist on holding out longer than the workers. And he can't do that if you start screaming for the province to step in! In the end, Torontonians need to ask themselves: who runs this city? You? The want-it-both-ways City Council? Or the workers?