January 22, 2010 - 3:42 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
City Manager Penny Ballem chose wisely when selecting the tool to make necessary cuts.
My first take on this is that 44 jobs being cut thus far is far better for City of Vancouver employees than the original 120. The fact that “opportunities for potential placements of impacted staff” was always a part of the equation is impressive, and this revised number is the result of such efforts.
As I detailed in an earlier post regarding the services review that was just completed at City Hall:
“Achieving efficiencies, rolling back expenditures and cutting staff are never an easy set of tasks for any organization. That being said, what has happened as a result of the shared services review was something that was years overdo, and previously lacking the political will and the institutional leadership to make it happen.“
One would think that the unions, having plenty of advance notice that the layoffs are coming, will be very pleased with this adjusted result. In spite of the rhetoric from CUPE’s Paul Faoro to his membership in an open letter written last month:
“City Council chose to ignore all of the citizens and organizations, including civic unions they heard from during their consultation,”
it is now clear that the opposite is true.
If cutting a bloated and often duplicated bureaucracy results in a mere 44 jobs losses out of 9,000 jobs within the City of Vancouver, I’d say that it represents an impressive result largely brought about by team effort and innovation.
Alright…enough of inside baseball.
December 29, 2009 - 4:30 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
An interesting take on how to achieve cost savings within City Hall, although Philip Hochstein’s membership would likely be the beneficiaries of any decision to contract out, thereby defining his piece as self-serving rather than sensible. Now while I for one am not a union activist by any stretch of the imagination, I do not believe in ripping up collective agreements as Hochstein seems to be advocating.
And lastly, try and guess who had the audacity to post this on their website:
“So, over the course of the last month, I have noticed a preponderance and entertaining seep of personal questions from many of you, so I thought I would answer some of them here, to show you that my critics are wrong: I am, quite frankly, an open-book–I have no agendas and represent no one except me. Though, I am guarded of my most personal feelings most of the time…
Here are the top ten, in no particular order (some of these are hysterical, well, at least to me…)
1) From Lana, Joliette, PQ. “Are you married? I have a friend in Vancouver who loves your look!”
Believe it or not I sent this individual a note a couple of weeks back complementing him on some of his recent writings and wishing him and his family a happy holidays (hoping to perhaps get in the spirit of the season and bury the hatchet, so to speak). But after reading over such a list that contains such an implausible “query” (placed in the number one position, no less), I think that I might focus on more likely scenarios, such as this for example.
December 18, 2009 - 9:56 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
We might just see a twister and a strike of lightning simultaneously if Council can pass today's budget unscathed.
Here are the final set of recommendations for Council to consider for approval today.
What strikes me as new and significant in the mix is this:
Read the rest of this entry »
October 29, 2009 - 1:26 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
Geoff Meggs provides his thoughts on the issues regarding his motion on the Greater Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau.
This morning I conducted an interview with Councillor Geoff Meggs to seek out comments on his motion, which is slated to appear before Council next week.
Read the rest of this entry »
