City staff one step closer to trash duty test drive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/02/2018 (3002 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A proposal to have City of Winnipeg staff handle some residential garbage pickup moved closer to reality this week.

Members of city council’s executive policy committee (EPC) unanimously endorsed a two-year pilot project Tuesday that will see civic workers handle one of three waste-collection contracts for multi-residential buildings.

If approved by council next week, this would be the first time civic staff has handled garbage collection since the work was contracted out in 2006.

“I really think this is a step in the right direction,” said Gord Delbridge, president of CUPE Local 500. “This gives us an opportunity to evaluate and compare this service coming in-house.”

The pilot project will begin Feb. 1, 2020, running for a two-year period.

Finance chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham said the administration will consider all costs of doing the work using civic staff, including salaries, benefits and pensions, equipment leasing and insurance.

“It’s an opportunity for us to do a thorough cost analysis,” Gillingham said. “What we’re really looking for, ultimately, is the best service for the best value for the citizens of Winnipeg.”

The proposal is a major victory for CUPE 500, the city’s largest union and whose members had done garbage collection for decades until Winnipeg contracted the work out in the belief it would be less expensive.

While the union maintained civic staff could do a better job at a comparable price, successive administrations and councils rebuffed moves to bring any part of garbage and recycling collection in-house — despite evidence from other major Canadian cities that continue to do all or a part of collection using city staff.

The city’s experience with contracted-out garbage collection has been mixed.

There were numerous complaints on a daily basis from residents across the city against Emterra Environmental, the firm that was handed the bulk of waste and recycling contracts in 2012.

Late and missed pickups, damaged carts, reliance on minimum-wage day labourers who were given no training, numerous workplace safety and health violations and stop-work orders dogged Emterra’s time with the city.

When Winnipeg put out tenders for a new contract starting in fall 2017, the combined cost of the two winning firms — Green For Life (GFL) Environmental Inc. and Miller Waste Systems Inc. — was more than $7 million higher annually than the previous contract with Emterra.

Delbridge told the EPC the new contracts show it’s a myth the private sector offers savings, adding he believes the new contracts far exceed what it would have cost council had the work been given to civic workers, including employee benefits and pensions.

Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of the environment committee, which had previously supported the pilot project, said the project’s results will be helpful when the contracts with GFL and Miller expire in seven years’ time.

Mayes, who has been a labour-endorsed candidate in previous elections, said the pilot project will determine if any portion of the city-wide curbside collections can be done with civic staff and contain cost increases from the private sector.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca