On October 3, the City of Winnipeg Standing Committee on Water and Waste met to consider the recommendations by the Public 
Service to award a seven-year contract to GFL Environmental Inc. and Miller Waste Systems Inc. for solid waste collection in the City of Winnipeg.
In May 2016, City Council voted in favour of the Water and Waste Committee’s recommendation to put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) that called for bids to provide waste collection services at the City of Winnipeg. The RFP explicitly stated that the contract would not be awarded if the cost of performing the work with city employees was equivalent. To date, there has been no in-house costing provided to us, despite requesting such a document to both City administration and politicians.
In his presentation to both City Council and the Water and Waste Committee, Local 500 President Gord Delbridge urged councillors to look at all options before putting out the RFP and awarding the proposed contracts.
“At the very least, the City should be doing its own costing to determine if this core service would best be delivered in-house,” said Delbridge. “When municipalities across the country are bringing this service back into public hands to save money and improve service, one has to wonder why Winnipeg is not looking carefully at this option.”
Delbridge cited many examples of where other jurisdictions are finding that contracting out waste collection services does not achieve savings, nor do they offer better quality service to the taxpayer.
The City of Ottawa found “impressive operational savings” by bringing solid waste collection in-house. In fact, a press release issued on August 18, 2014 by the Mayor of Ottawa indicated that by working with the union, the re-municipalization of solid waste services achieved $677,530 in total savings in the first year of the new in-house contracts.
In a September 9, 2015 Staff Report, the City of Toronto found that contracting out portions of its municipal garbage collection services would result in no savings, and would in fact cost more.
“We know that since contracting out this service, Winnipeggers have experienced a notable decrease in the reliability and quality of garbage and recycling pickup,” said Delbridge. “It is no fault of the workers who have struggled daily to do their jobs to the best of their ability, but the private contractors have failed to deliver time and again.”
The City’s administrative report also contained a recommendation to enter into negotiations with Local 500 to see whether some smaller garbage contracts could be awarded in-house. Currently, five City contracts, for bulky waste and bin collection, are set to expire over the next year. The City also has plans to run a compost-collection pilot project.
“We have told City Council time and time again, that CUPE is willing to discuss how we can work together with them and the administration to develop costing for a strong, long-term, cost efficient solid waste service under full ownership and control of the City of Winnipeg and its citizens,” Delbridge said. “To-date CUPE Local 500 has not been approached to discuss the City’s internal costing, if this costing exists at all.”
Despite the evidence and arguments presented, the City’s water and waste committee cast a 2-2 vote. This means that the matter will go to the City’s next Executive Policy Committee without any recommendations.
Voting against the recommendation to award the proposed private contracts were: councillors Ross Eadie (Mynarski) and Shawn Dobson (St. Charles).
Voting in favour of awarding the proposed private contracts were: councillors Brian Mayes (St. Vital) and Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry).
“We are disappointed that some Councillors do not feel the City needs to do its due diligence and look at bringing this core service back in-house,” said Delbridge. “We will continue to advocate for a strong, high-quality municipal workforce to deliver this service in order to meet the needs and standards Winnipeggers expect from their city.”
Local 500 will continue to update the membership on this important issue as more information becomes available.
