Toronto backtracks on return-to-office plans for city employees as Omicron spreads panic
A few weeks back the City of Toronto made some bold and innovative moves to streamline all its services and deliver better service to its citizens. One area that got a lot of attention is the so-called “retirement” of the city employees (or “vacation staff”) who would go on sabbatical every year, usually for one full work year. This process has come under fire from municipal unions in recent weeks because it is said to be costly (estimates run anywhere from $1.5 million and up) and disruptive to the rest of the city.
But the people in charge and the unions that are pushing for the process argue that it is the most efficient way to reduce the amount of time and energy expended by municipal workers (who otherwise might be doing other city work) and free up resources that can actually be used to spend on the services the city provides to its citizens.
“We would like to see the city take a more strategic approach to cutting costs,” said a City Staff Services spokesperson who spoke to iPolitics. “We’ve cut costs in other areas and our approach is to be cost-effective and reduce the number of services that we provide to our residents.”
At the time of this writing, a few days after the article on the issue was published, a City Staff Services spokesperson told iPolitics that, in fact, retirements aren’t planned as a way of doing away with the v-Staff.
“We’ve been able to reduce the number of v-staff employees in the past by restructuring,” said the spokesperson. “The savings in terms of reducing the number of v-staff employees is significant, but we would like to see the retirement process continued if that’s the best option for the City