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Rob Ford's Toronto

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Never mind the fake twitter accounts, it's getting so that I can't distinguish the parody Toronto Sun front pages from the real things.
 
casita said:
It's City property, so the City could be held liable for any injuries sustained. Likewise, if an employee or elected official were to injure someone off City property, the City could be held liable.
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It's understandable that there would be liability issues for the employer. I'm wondering though if there are steps the employer could take to discipline the employee? Would anyone even oversee Ford in an employer - employee capacity, given that he's an elected official?

I get that workplace mishaps sometimes do occur. Someone could leave a box in an unsafe place, causing someone to trip, or any number of scenarios. This was a lot different, though. This was an intentional action he took (for no good reason!) where I think any reasonable person could have foreseen that it had a large potential to cause injury.
 
VintagePunk said:
I'm wondering though if there are steps the employer could take to discipline the employee? Would anyone even oversee Ford in an employer - employee capacity, given that he's an elected official?
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Progressive discipline for a City of Toronto employee would be verbal warning > written warning > suspension > dismissal > grievance > arbitration > ?

As for Rob Ford, they stripped him of his powers ( but, not his fridge magnets! :D ). As I understand it, unless he is serving a sentence behind bars ( or dies in office ) he stays on the City payroll as long as the public keeps voting him in.
 
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themarc said:
Sadly these statements happened in unrelated jurisdictions.
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Does that matter? A syndicated, licensed television show that is seen across North America and watched by an audience of millions. Each of whom tell someone. Who tells someone. And they all watch YouTube. Regardless of where the utterance was made, it's now a public statement. You could call in a single member of Joe Audience to say they saw it on Kimmel and the publication would have to be entered. No?
 
hper said:
Does that matter? A syndicated, licensed television show that is seen across North America and watched by an audience of millions. Each of whom tell someone. Who tells someone. And they all watch YouTube. Regardless of where the utterance was made, it's now a public statement. You could call in a single member of Joe Audience to say they saw it on Kimmel and the publication would have to be entered. No?
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VERY good point.
 
hper said:
Does that matter? A syndicated, licensed television show that is seen across North America and watched by an audience of millions. Each of whom tell someone. Who tells someone. And they all watch YouTube. Regardless of where the utterance was made, it's now a public statement. You could call in a single member of Joe Audience to say they saw it on Kimmel and the publication would have to be entered. No?
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Actually petition could be filed to accept the comments as case evidence. Yeah...
 
VintagePunk said:
Come on? Get real? Seriously? It wasn't funny. You have a 300+ pound man barrelling into an older lady, and she could have really been hurt. He wasn't running for a fire. He wasn't running to save a choking victim. He was running to help his idiot brother in a stupid argument. Right into a group of people, of which McConnell was one of them. Not sure where you've worked, but yes, at my work place, that kind of poor judgement wouldn't be tolerated, apology or no. We're expected to conduct ourselves with professionalism on company time.
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The bigger issue is that he and his brother were intimidating citizens that were in the gallery, threatening them and taking their photos. His behaviour that day would have been unacceptable in any workplace, much less a government office. Yet, nothing's come of it because Rob Ford can get away with mostly anything.
 
ParkdalePetunia said:
The bigger issue is that he and his brother were intimidating citizens that were in the gallery, threatening them and taking their photos. His behaviour that day would have been unacceptable in any workplace, much less a government office. Yet, nothing's come of it because Rob Ford can get away with mostly anything.
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I totally agree the way that they were acting with the 'crowd' was absolutely insane, and if we're going to treat this like any other workplace then I completely agree that treating 'clients' like that would get you shitcanned faster than you could say 'subways'. Then again, plenty of other things he has done would get you on the street right-quick too, so... What did someone here say, "teflon mayor"?

I just personally don't think accidentally bumping into the woman, even for a stupid reason, is all that egregious especially considering everything else he has done.
 
casita said:
Progressive discipline for a City of Toronto employee would be verbal warning > written warning > suspension > dismissal > grievance > arbitration > ?

As for Rob Ford, they stripped him of his powers ( but, not his fridge magnets! :D ). As I understand it, unless he is serving a sentence behind bars ( or dies in office ) he stays on the City payroll as long as the public keeps voting him in.
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If the council does not grant him an extended leave for any reason, I think it's more than 3 months, then his seat on the council is vacated, and either an appointee takes over or there is a new election.

If Robbie gets any sentence other than jail I'm sure the province will amend The City of Toronto Act to allow a "recall" or council will keep extending the motion to invest the Deputy Mayor with his council given powers.
 
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euler said:
...accidentally bumping into the woman...
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You make it sound like he was innocently walking along not paying attention, and bumped into her, no harm done. This was a LOT different than that. He plowed into her and would have knocked her right over if she hadn't been caught. And I didn't say it was more egregious than other things. Just that this is something that did result in injury to her, injury that could have been a lot worse, and it was done in a workplace in front of a lot of people, caught on film, yet nothing was done. I think that people ought to be able to work under the reasonable expectation that a giant oaf isn't going to come speeding at them, full tilt.

A driver speeding in heavy traffic might not intend to injure anyone, but if/when they do, they're still held responsible and punished, under the premise that they should have known their actions could cause injury.

And yes, the argument with members of the public was stupid and petty and ridiculous (pretty much everything we've come to expect from the Fords), but none of them were physically injured.
 
Could there not be some case made somewhere for his removal or discipline due to his behaviour exposing the city to liability? This is mostly a hypothetical, because it's late in the game now, and he should meet his fate soon either by law or democracy. Still, his charging through media or around the chambers (the McConnell incident) could bring liability due to assaults or injury. His reported comments about Olivia Gondek or towards a female security guard could be evidence of a hostile environment. Same with exposing staffers to drug consumption, prostitutes(?). The city must have a tight code of conduct for their workplaces. If no one can take action after his almost daily transgressions now, what could they do if, for example, a female staffer said he made some inappropriate move towards her? Maybe it takes someone victimized to complain, but by then the city could be on the hook for a large payout.

In the debates I'd like to see someone ask him to explain his firings of the TCHC board and Gary Webster. And then after he boasts about being a man of action and results in those events, asking him what his response would be if he learned that the head of city department was seen with criminals, had written references for criminals and was under police investigation.
 
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typezed said:
Could there not be some case made somewhere for his removal or discipline due to his behaviour exposing the city to liability? This is mostly a hypothetical, because it's late in the game now, and he should meet his fate soon either by law or democracy. Still, his charging through media or around the chambers (the McConnell incident) could bring liability due to assaults or injury. His reported comments about Olivia Gondek or towards a female security guard could be evidence of a hostile environment. Same with exposing staffers to drug consumption, prostitutes(?). The city must have a tight code of conduct for their workplaces. If no one can take action after his almost daily transgressions now, what could they do if, for example, a female staffer said he made some inappropriate move towards her? Maybe it takes someone victimized to complain, but by then the city could be on the hook for a large payout.
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Thank you for articulating this better than I did. He is creating a hostile and unsafe work environment, and as you and others have mentioned, that leaves the city open to liability, not to mention that the city has an obligation to provide its employees with safe working conditions. I also agree that it's probably too late for anything to be done. It's just that the McConnell incident seemed so black and white to me that I found it particularly surprising that after a day or two, it seemed to fall off everyone's radar.
 
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