What if a city strike actually put more money in your pocket?
That’s the scenario in Windsor, where officials say their city’s 11-week municipal strike is saving taxpayers $300,000 a day in wages.
Strike-related costs will lower that figure eventually, but a net saving is expected and officials say some of the savings will be passed back to residents.
Nearly two weeks into the Toronto civic workers’ strike, officials won’t release figures on how much the city is saving on wages. But when city council approved Toronto’s budget earlier this year, wages and salaries were estimated at $4 billion, or almost half of the 2009 operating budget.
Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong thinks the city has been saving about $28 million a week on wages since the strike began, but was unable to confirm his calculations with officials.
“Staff won’t calculate it. I’ve asked them and they’ve refused,” Minnan-Wong said.
“The only answer they can come up with is they don’t know the expenses of the strike. But I don’t think it would be too difficult to calculate the salary savings.”
Financial impact figures likely won’t be released until after the strike, city spokesman Kevin Sack says.
Some 30,000 municipal workers went on strike June 22, shutting down garbage collection, city-run child care, summer camps and other services.
