Union 'very frustrated' as St. John's cuts public works jobs

The union that represents the outside workers with the City of St. John's is calling on city council to reconsider its decision to cut 48 positions from its public works staff.

• Dozens to be laid off in St. John's; mayor warns more to come

"All of our members, and ourselves, are none too pleased with the outcome of this right now," said Terry Bennett, president of CUPE local 569, which represents 450 workers with the city. 

Council decided at Monday's meeting to eliminate the jobs as part of a broader cost-saving move. 

"Our members are very frustrated … [But the cuts] are what they are, and we're going to have to deal with them," he said. 

Bennett said that the cuts make up about 10 per cent of the union's workforce with the city, and that the majority of the cuts will be coming from the snowclearing and winter operations staff.

He said that in his 39 years of experience with the city, it's often seasonal workers who are let go in tough times.

"Traditionally, anytime there's a cutback in the workforce with the City of St. John's, where we do have seasonal workers, that's the easiest one to cut for the people with the power," Bennett said.

Tip of the iceberg

Bennett said that he and other CUPE members are concerned about further cuts, and that Monday's decision could be just the tip of the iceberg. 

"We don't know what's going to be coming because parks and rec now is a big employer for the summertime, and we're hearing that there may be cutbacks there," he said.

Bennett said that laying off workers in parks and recreation could result in more time between playground inspections and less cleaning and maintenance of city parks and properties.  

$2 million in savings

St. John's Coun. Danny Breen, who also chairs the city's public works committee, said that the cuts will save the city $2 million dollars over the next two years.

Breen said a total of 48 positions will be eliminated, 37 from snowclearing and winter operations and 11 from summer operations. Forty-three of those positions will come from the union and 5 from management.

He said the city had the option to move from a three-shift system to a two-shift system, but it was believed that wouldn't meet the city's service standard.

"The staff came back with another version of that which would maintain three shifts but cut the number of employees, the number of staff on each shift, and we felt we could still maintain our service standard with that," Breen said.

'False and misleading'

Bennett said that he is glad that the city is maintaining a three shift system, but he is not convinced that fewer city workers will be able to maintain the same standard of service. 

"It's debatable whether or not these figures are going to work out, and that'll depend on the weather that comes on us," Bennett said.

CUPE national representative Brian Farewell said the cuts will harm the quality of snowclearing work in St. John's. 

"Residents are definitely going to see a difference in the standard of service, especially in things like sidewalk clearing of snow and ice, and road maintenance year round," he said in a statement Tuesday.

"For any member of council to suggest otherwise is false and misleading."

Fewer people, more work

Breen said the most significant change will be a higher reliance on overtime, using fewer people to do more work.

This is not something that we're particularly pleased to be doing- Danny Breen

"Our supervisors will be supervising more routes and more employees than before, and we'll be cutting back on some of the additional employees we had in case other employees, for example, called in sick or weren't available," Breen told the St. John's Morning Show. 

He said it was not an easy decision to cut jobs, but it is necessary in tough economic times. 

"This is not something that we're particularly pleased to be doing. These are difficult decisions. They affect families and affect our employees," Breen said.

"But we also know that because salaries and staffing costs are a significant portion of our costs, and public works being the biggest department in the city, these decisions are necessary if we're going to reduce our costs."

Breen said the city is still going through a review of its programs to continue to look for efficiencies.