An extensive report by the Toronto Star today into maintenance costs within the Toronto District School Board has revealed some staggering figures. Did you know that it cost one school 3-grand to install an electrical outlet in the library, and another school paid $143 to have a pencil-sharpener put up in a classroom—a five-minute ordeal that requires four screws? Man, these union workers must be getting paid like kings!
Well no, not exactly. That three-thousand-dollar library job, for instance, which took two electricians two hours to complete, ended up being billed as 76 hours to Campbell Collegiate Institute. As per the Star, “sources say (this) was done to account for the time of idle workers who had no assignments that week.” So every time a school needs some work done, it seems they hafta pay an entire union to do it. How many unionized workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb, anyways?
When first contacted by the Star, Jimmy Hazel, a union rep for some 900-plus electricians, plumbers, carpenters and maintenance workers under contract with the TDSB, allegedly told a reporter, “We don’t need to f—— prove anything to anybody about costs. A s—load more work was done to justify the cost of that plug job I can tell you.” He later relented, saying that a whopping seven electricians, or roughly eight per cent of the workforce, had been laid off. I guess they’ll only be billed for 70 hours next time…
Of course, since Rob Ford boycotts the Star, chances are he won’t read about this issue. However, even if the Mayor of This CityTM doesn’t step in, at least one good thing has come out of the investigative report: school janitors have now been given permission to install pencil sharpeners. That’s a cool 143-dollar savings right there!
