At the June City Council meeting, councillors voted 23-18 to begin the process of alternative service delivery. A list of the City Councillors who voted for ASD is provided at the end of this report.

ASD is the buzz word of the right. Since their election and subsequent re-election, the Tories at Queen's Park have been trumpeting the virtues of ASD as the way of the future for local governments. Supporters of ASD have their role model. They look to Indianapolis as the success story of how local government can re-organize services and programs. What they don't tell us is that Indianapolis has now abandoned ASD because it wasn't as great as it was made out to be.

What is ASD? ASD is simply contracting out and privatization of City services. The proponents for ASD argue that this is the most efficient way to deliver services and programs in order to save money and keep taxes under control. For the labour movement, it means the loss of quality public sector jobs that pay decent wages and provide benefits. Profit - not service - becomes the key priority. No one cares that the workers in the privatized companies make low wages and have no benefits.

City Council has a core group of Councillors who are in favour of ASD. In front of hundreds of CUPE members, the Mayor and his key allies - Deputy Mayor Case Ootes and Councillors Betty Disero and Brad Duguid - made the case for the staff's recommendation to contract out four service areas - light and heavy cleaning, tree trimming, lawn and boulevard cutting and building inspection. This debate happened a week before City employees, members of CUPE Local 416, were scheduled to go on strike.

The Mayor added fuel to the fire when he said in Council that he couldn't understand what was all the fuss was about since Council was only going to study the ASD proposal. Everyone knew this was simply not true. Councillor Rob Ford, who is no friend of the labour movement, admonished the Mayor and his fellow City Councillors to stop being hypocrites. He reminded them that they had no intention of doing any more studies. Councillor Ford called ASD what it really is – the contracting out and privatizing of City unionized jobs. Approval of the staff report would set in motion the transfer of these City jobs to the private sector by 2003.

The Councillors who supported ASD knew what they were doing. They knew that City cleaners currently make only $36,000 a year + benefits. These are not high salaries. Councillor David Miller reminded City Council that the cut off point for families in this community applying for City subsidies is $35,000 per year. The City's cleaners are barely above poverty level but it doesn't seem to matter to some Councillors that they making some of their employees take major wage cuts and lose their benefits.

City Councillors were also told loud and clear that it unacceptable to have a private company being responsible for building inspection when dealing with the development industry. The City government wants to go forward with this proposal because the province is re-introducing Bill 124 which will allow municipalities to contract out building inspectors. Even though there is compelling evidence from other jurisdictions around the world, the City Council is prepared to allow the industry to regulate itself.

Since the City Council meeting two weeks ago, City government has been turned upside down. We now have a strike. We have a Mayor who had abdicated all responsibility. We have a Deputy Mayor, Case Ootes, who is determined to break the two local unions and move full steam ahead with ASD. We have a City without key services. All of this has occurred in the context of the Mayor's Summit which talks about a New Deal and vision for the City.

It is essential CUPE Locals 79 and 416 win this struggle with the City and the Eves' government at Queen's Park. No one should be confused. There is not an enlightened crew in charge at Queen's Park - they are right wing ideologues determined to destroy unions, dismantle public services and local government as we know it. The Eves' government and the team lead by Mayor Lastman, with the increasing influence of Deputy Mayor Case Ootes, are committed to the same agenda of contracting out and privatization.

The battle line has been drawn – we must stop them from destroying our community.