Consequences of outsourcing city cleaning Jobs

By Robert Dryden and Jim Stanford

Canadians were justifiably outraged when Electro-Motive, owned by Caterpillar, threatened its London, Ont., workers with a 50 per cent pay cut and then left Canada in search of cheaper labour in the U.S.

In Toronto, a similar story is unfolding, only it’s city council — not an industrial giant — that poses the threat.

City council is considering whether to outsource up to 1,000 civic cleaning and janitorial positions to low-wage private-sector contractors. Pay rates for the hard work of keeping our public facilities clean and safe would face a Caterpillar-style reduction of as much as 50 per cent.

Full story Toronto Star