recycling

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, March 28, 2014

Waste collection: Part-time work for full-time pay

Many of the city’s unionized waste collectors appear to be routinely working about five hours a day while being paid for eight. In some cases, the total amount of time actually spent collecting trash is as little as three hours in a shift. The Spectator investigation, which took place over three months this winter, also discovered that some trucks were routinely gathered on a private road leading to Pier 22 in the east end and sat idling for up to half an hour in the late morning before moving next door to the city’s waste facility on Burlington Street East to clock out for the day. On some days, as many as six trucks sat idling on the little-used road, and some of them parked well back from the Burlington Street intersection. On several occasions during the investigation, the trucks idling on the obscure Pier 22 road had arrived less than four and a half hours after leaving the Burlington Street facility to start the day. In other cases, city garbage trucks lined up in the entrance of the Kenora Avenue transfer station and sat idle for periods of up to 45 minutes in the late morning before returning to the Burlington Street facility to finish their shifts. The investigation showed that for some employees, the total amount of time that elapsed from the moment they drove on to the Burlington Street East property to the moment they left was as little as five hours and six minutes. The findings of the Spectator investigation also suggest that the daily finishing times appear to be closely co-ordinated between trucks. On many of the observed days, as many as a dozen trucks would assemble in a line just prior to noon in the entrance of the Burlington Street facility, ready to pass through the weigh scales as soon as the clock struck noon. The investigation again shines a light on the question of part-time performance for full-time pay in the public works department. “It’s certainly alarming, it’s disappointing and it’s discouraging,” said Ward 8 Councillor Terry Whitehead, chair of city council’s public works committee. “It’s very concerning that taxpayers in this community don’t appear to be getting value for dollars. “I really want to focus on how high this goes up in regard to responsibility, because at some point at the high level, heads have to roll,” Whitehead added. It was just over a year ago that the city’s public works department faced a similar black eye involving front-line workers in the roads division. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)