Well, the people of Toronto said we want that 0.2% tax reduction loud and clear.
They did? When? I don't think anyone promised tax reductions, even Ford, no?
So we wasted all those money just so that some politician can boast that we have more people living in the middle income neighbourhoods?...I am sorry, there are a lot of argument for having unions, but making politicians look good is not a valid one.
SimonP brought that stat up as an example of how the gap is growing. It has nothing to do with politicians boasting one thing or another. It's just an illustration of how there is an increasing polarization of incomes in Toronto.
So don't drag manufacture workers and other private sector employees into this argument. They don't benefit from public waste, why use them as an excuse? They don't care whether they are in the same demographic group as public employees making 6 figure salaries.
They may not care, but it definitely affects them. It also indirectly influences what other lines of work/professions get paid - even you and I.
Privatizing, contracting out, or reducing public sector wages changes how governments and corporations compete in the market for employees.
In the end, picking up garbage is picking up garbage. The only way to significantly reduce costs is in how much you pay the workers. Privatizing or contracting-out reduces costs for the public because private corporations pay garbage workers less than governments would.
The people who work in manufacturing often have the same type of education, skills and employment background as many of the public sector workers we’re talking about, like maintenance, garbage, physical works, etc. (There is some variation in job-specific training, but by and large they're the same class of job.) The point being, they’re all competing for the same type of semi-skilled manual labour-based jobs.
And that’s why the plight of manufacturing workers is related to that of the public garbage workers employed by the city. As soon as you lower the highest bar, all of the other bars get lowered with it. When this happens, it sends signals to the market about what labour is worth.
Privatizing or contracting out effectively removes the private sector’s toughest competitor from the market. It changes everything. (For example, think of the TV market without Sony. Or the car market without the Japanese automakers - would Ford be going all "as reliable as Toyota" on us without that competition? Did the Big Three increase in quality when their Japanese competitors were small and insignificant?) Private sector corporations no longer have to compete with governments by providing as attractive compensation, as comprehensive benefits, as ideal working conditions, etc. This suppresses these factors all across the market for garbage workers, manufacturing workers, etc.
And the effect isn’t limited to only this specific pool of workers. The markets for other skills or professions also take notice of this new valuation of labour. (E.g. if unskilled physical labour is worth x, then semi-skilled labour is worth x+1, and college-educated professions are worth x+2, trades are worth x+3, etc. If the new standard for x becomes x-0.5, then everyone's pay equation changes, slowly, over time.) The effects are wide-ranging, and influence how both employers and employees compete in the market.
Now, you may have other priorities. You may not care about the impact of contracting out on other workers. You may be willing to weather the indirect impact this has on your wages. And that’s completely fine, it’s your prerogative.
Your assertion that privatization of public workers has no impact on manufacturing workers, however, is simply wrong.