Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A 'Human Rights' Complaint in the Offing?

The city of Toronto, victim of a protracted and stinky garbage strike during one hot summer when David Miller was mayor, is deciding whether or not to privatize refuse collection. An aggrieved chick who wants others of her gender to get in on the garbarge action is making a big stink about it. From the Toronto Star:
In what will likely be the only airing of Toronto’s garbage privatization plan outside City Hall, a female trash collector managed to rattle the normally unflappable councillor leading the push.
Christine Monks, a permanent city employee with 11 years service, told Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong that virtually no private waste haulers hire women as collectors. “They don’t think we can do the work,” she said later, clad in her orange work coveralls, in an interview.
Should Toronto — which has equality hiring provisions for its own workers — care if the private company that takes over the territory between Yonge St. and the Etobicoke border discriminates against women, she asked.
Minnan-Wong, chair of the public works committee, was clearly surprised by the question and fumbled a bit before saying: “I think the contractor should focus on getting the job done.”...
Silly Councillor M-W. Don't you know that here in Ontario "getting the job done" comes a distant second to the inherent inequities built into the job of heaving the contents of heaping trashcans into garbage trucks? (Maybe they can ban big cans, to make the job easier--and "fairer.")

Update: A song for the occasion:

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