City Council Executive freeze wages for all non-union employees, except........

[BornRuff]

Now, before I get into this, may of you already know me as the guy who is always providing the counter arguments when others complain about high pay and bonuses for executives, unions, etc. I honestly really hesitate to post this since I know it will just start the usual rhetoric again, but it will end up being posted by someone else anyways, and I do feel that the City Council Executive is making a very poor choice here.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/615388

Councillors freeze pay for others
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City politicians under fire for eliminating staffers' cost-of-living increases while keeping their own
Apr 08, 2009 04:30 AM
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Donovan Vincent
city hall bureau
Paul Moloney
John Spears

Councillors on the city's powerful executive committee agreed yesterday to eliminate cost-of-living and merit increases for non-union city staff this year. But an hour later, they voted not to touch a 2.42 per cent raise for themselves.

It was precisely what Councillor Doug Holyday had warned would be "the height of hypocrisy."

In a long-shot bid, he and a group of other councillors, mostly fiscal conservatives, had urged the executive committee to allow a vote on the councillor pay question to be held later this month during a meeting of the full council.

"I'd like my constituents to know where I stand,'' said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, adding he wanted a chance to vote against the freeze.

But that bid failed.

Instead, the executive committee adopted a motion from deputy mayor Joe Pantalone calling for a study into councillor pay to be conducted before the beginning of the next term, in late 2010.

That effectively ends the issue for now, while the freeze for non-union staff will be debated at council.

Yesterday's debate over the councillors' automatic pay raise at times turned nasty, with interruptions and name-calling.

At one point, Councillor Frances Nunziata, who like Holyday isn't on the executive committee, said some members were behaving in an "ignorant manner," interrupting her and making faces as she spoke in favour of a council vote on the issue.

She later retracted the remark after Mayor David Miller rebuked her for improper decorum.

In 2006, after a review, councillors voted to raise their salaries almost 9 per cent – to $95,000 – in 2007. They declared that henceforth there would be only cost-of-living increases. Including this year's increase, councillors earn $99,153.

Most GTA councils gave themselves 3 per cent increases this year.

Miller did not take this year's cost-of-living increase, freezing his salary at $163,040.

But he refused to ask fellow politicians to do the same. Councillors could sign a form returning their increase to the city.

Sixteen did so. The rest accepted the pay hike or donated it to a charity of their choice.

One of the 16, Adam Vaughan, said referring the matter back to council for a vote wasn't required, given that council had already referred the matter to executive weeks ago.

Richard Majkot, executive director of the non-union staff association, had said his members would accept a cost-of-living freeze, but only if council extended it to unionized workers as well.

Miller argued that many non-union employees won't have their wages completely frozen this year, because their pay increases up to 3 per cent as they gain experience, as long as they meet performance standards. They'll lose their cost-of-living raise, but not the experience increase.

Performance-based bonuses are also being frozen for employees at the top of their wage scale.

But Majkot told the committee that merit pay increases shouldn't be frozen this year, since they're based on last year's performance.

Freezing pay will mean Toronto employees' salaries will fall behind those in other GTA municipalities.

"Morale will decrease, you may have a problem attracting and retaining high-performing employees (and) the city becomes less competitive in its salary rates," he said.

Hanging over the debate is the fact that the city is currently bargaining with its unionized workers, whose contracts expired Dec. 31.

This seems like a caricature of government bureaucracy. A government that votes to freeze cost of living increases for their staff, but keep that exact same increase for themselves, with the punch line being that they deferred having to take the decrease themselves by commissioning a study into their compensation, something that will end up costing the city more money.

The right action here is so simple. If you are going to tell your workers they can't have a certain pay increase, show them that you are also not taking that increase. David Miller and 16 councilors are already not taking the increase, but if they do not present a united front on this it makes them all look bad.

What I don't understand is that the amount of money we are talking about is very small, and more symbolic than anything else. It seems like the damage to the credibility of the council is not worth an extra $2400 each. If they really think that giving up the cost of living increase is too much to afford themselves, then they should not be imposing it on others.

This isn't going to be good PR for them, that is for sure.

[Nav]

how dare the non-union employees even think they should deserve a cost-of-living and merit increase. Just because the union employees, and councillors deserve one.

seriously, its disgusting that councillors/mayor feel that they deserve a raise, but not everyone. If they want to cut costs, be consistent.

[rdtx2002]

Mayor Big Spender needs to keep the pockets full of those councilors that are paid off by him

[corrupt123]

Instead, the executive committee adopted a motion from deputy mayor Joe Pantalone calling for a study into councillor pay to be conducted before the beginning of the next term, in late 2010.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ohhhh Toronto... Where the only way to get things done is study it for a year or two, then check and see if anyone still cares.

[BornRuff]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ohhhh Toronto... Where the only way to get things done is study it for a year or two, then check and see if anyone still cares.

Should we take bets on what actual policy changes will come out of this?

[WontonTiger]

Should we take bets on what actual policy changes will come out of this?

Toronto is becoming a socialist haven.

This just disgusts me. Let's pool money together, and pay someone to get all of their information. We can then post it all on the internet for angry citizens to see, hoping that they take some sort of non-violent revenge on them. These people are unable to see the truth, or rationalize logic. They need to be removed, however that will never happen due to the demographics in Toronto.

I'm so glad I'm just outside the Toronto boundary. I couldn't deal with this kind of blatant selfish entitlement.

[Frankie3s]

Toronto is becoming a socialist haven.

This just disgusts me. Let's pool money together, and pay someone to get all of their information. We can then post it all on the internet for angry citizens to see, hoping that they take some sort of non-violent revenge on them. These people are unable to see the truth, or rationalize logic. They need to be removed, however that will never happen due to the demographics in Toronto.

I'm so glad I'm just outside the Toronto boundary. I couldn't deal with this kind of blatant selfish entitlement.

Sadly the current mayor is pro-union and that's why everything is going up in leaps and bounds. Until this guy is out, no increase in taxes or help from the province (which I sometimes think the province should be renamed Province of Toronto) will be enough. Torontonians made a bad choice in their electoral choices during the past two elections and will have to suckit up. Hopefully during the next municipal election they will wise up and realize that the price that they have paid has been too much.

[BornRuff]

Toronto is becoming a socialist haven.

This just disgusts me. Let's pool money together, and pay someone to get all of their information. We can then post it all on the internet for angry citizens to see, hoping that they take some sort of non-violent revenge on them. These people are unable to see the truth, or rationalize logic. They need to be removed, however that will never happen due to the demographics in Toronto.

I'm so glad I'm just outside the Toronto boundary. I couldn't deal with this kind of blatant selfish entitlement.

This isn't really socialist, they voted to prevent pay raises for public workers.

The issue is that they are keeping their own raises. That is not really attributed to any one political viewpoint, it is just greed and poor judgement.

Sadly the current mayor is pro-union and that's why everything is going up in leaps and bounds. Until this guy is out, no increase in taxes or help from the province (which I sometimes think the province should be renamed Province of Toronto) will be enough. Torontonians made a bad choice in their electoral choices during the past two elections and will have to suckit up. Hopefully during the next municipal election they will wise up and realize that the price that they have paid has been too much.

Again, these points are not really related to the isse here. The isse is with the city council voting to prevent pay raises, while keep their own. The council is not unionized, so I don't know how you can really work unions into this.

You can not really fault Miller on this one either. He has given up his pay raise, it is the council executive that decided to keep the raise for the councillors(well, essentially leave it up to the councillors to choose if they want theirs). They didn't give that choice to the workers though, so I don't know why they should give themselves that choice.

[Frankie3s]

This isn't really socialist, they voted to prevent pay raises for public workers.

The issue is that they are keeping their own raises. That is not really attributed to any one political viewpoint, it is just greed and poor judgement.



Again, these points are not really related to the isse here. The isse is with the city council voting to prevent pay raises, while keep their own. The council is not unionized, so I don't know how you can really work unions into this.

You can not really fault Miller on this one either. He has given up his pay raise, it is the council executive that decided to keep the raise for the councillors(well, essentially leave it up to the councillors to choose if they want theirs). They didn't give that choice to the workers though, so I don't know why they should give themselves that choice.

Then as a supposedly democratic society those non-unionized worker should be allowed to vote on whether they should be allowed pay raises much like on how city council does for themselves. I know this isn't your argument but by treating these non-unionized workers as second class citizens won't help productivity much. It should be "an everyone takes a hit or no one does" including the tax payer and they did by accepting a 4% hike in keeping corruption and theft alive.

[BornRuff]

Then as a supposedly democratic society those non-unionized worker should be allowed to vote on whether they should be allowed pay raises much like on how city council does for themselves. I know this isn't your argument but by treating these non-unionized workers as second class citizens won't help productivity much. It should be "an everyone takes a hit or no one does" including the tax payer and they did by accepting a 4% hike in keeping corruption and theft alive.

I do not think that there is a need for workers to vote on their compensation. If every pay cut or raise was a democratic vote within the company, I think we can predict the outcome of each vote with 100% accuracy. The workers have the right to vote on the same things that every other resident of Toronto gets to vote on. In their relationship as employees, it is no different than your relaitonship with your employer.

The fact that the council can vote on compensation for themselves is a tricky issue. They are really the only ones authorized to decide how to spend the city's money, so I don't know who else could be charged with making these decisions. There is an obvious conflic of interest though.

I do believe that they should be taking the hit too though. It's not undemocratic, we gave them a mandate to make choices on these issues, it's just very hypocritical and unfair.

[ferkel]

i never voted for him in either election.. it must have been you guys

[BornRuff]

i never voted for him in either election.. it must have been you guys

Why are people blaming Miller for this? He's only one of the 13 members on the exec council, and he actually took the pay cut himself.

[ferkel]

Why are people blaming Miller for this? He's only one of the 13 members on the exec council, and he actually took the pay cut himself.

I guess you don't pay Property Taxes.

[BornRuff]

I guess you don't pay Property Taxes.

Since when was this thread about property tax?

[Whitedart]

This isn't really socialist, they voted to prevent pay raises for public workers.

The issue is that they are keeping their own raises. That is not really attributed to any one political viewpoint, it is just greed and poor judgement.

What percentage or number of employees are affected by this, aside for management staff?

Many of the largest employee groups are already governed by union contracts: fire, police, ems, transit, library, outside workers, housing.