Many of the city's unionized waste collectors appear to be routinely working about five hours a day while being paid for eight.

In some cases, the total amount of time actually spent collecting trash is as little as three hours in a shift.

The Spectator investigation, which took place over three months this winter, also discovered that some trucks were routinely gathered on a private road leading to Pier 22 in the east end and sat idling for up to half an hour in the late morning before moving next door to the city's waste facility on Burlington Street East to clock out for the day.

On some days, as many as six trucks sat idling on the little-used road, and some of them parked well back from the Burlington Street intersection. On several occasions during the investigation, the trucks idling on the obscure Pier 22 road had arrived less than four and a half hours after leaving the Burlington Street facility to start the day.

In other cases, city garbage trucks lined up in the entrance of the Kenora Avenue transfer station and sat idle for periods of up to 45 minutes in the late morning before returning to the Burlington Street facility to finish their shifts.

The investigation showed that for some employees, the total amount of time that elapsed from the moment they drove on to the Burlington Street East property to the moment they left was as little as five hours and six minutes.

The findings of the Spectator investigation also suggest that the daily finishing times appear to be closely co-ordinated between trucks.

On many of the observed days, as many as a dozen trucks would assemble in a line just prior to noon in the entrance of the Burlington Street facility, ready to pass through the weigh scales as soon as the clock struck noon.

The investigation again shines a light on the question of part-time performance for full-time pay in the public works department.

"It's certainly alarming, it's disappointing and it's discouraging," said Ward 8 Councillor Terry Whitehead, chair of city council's public works committee.

"It's very concerning that taxpayers in this community don't appear to be getting value for dollars.

"I really want to focus on how high this goes up in regard to responsibility, because at some point at the high level, heads have to roll," Whitehead added.

It was just over a year ago that the city's public works department faced a similar black eye involving front-line workers in the roads division.

In January 2013, the city fired 29 employees and suspended two others after an internal investigation raised allegations of workers using city vehicles for personal use and receiving a full day's pay for only a few hours' work. Some of the fired workers have since been rehired.

Four months later, the city announced that five supervisors had left the department through retirement or resignation and nine other supervisors faced suspensions without pay in connection with the alleged time theft scandal.

"It's my understanding after the (road crews) incident that there was going to be a culture shift throughout the whole corporation but certainly public works," said Whitehead. "I'm not sure where we are with that, and I will be asking staff quite bluntly where we are with that process.

"It seems to me that what's happening is the front-line workers are taking advantage of what they think is part of a culture," Whitehead said. "But perhaps that culture has emanated from the culture of the supervision.

"Far too often we want to shoot the front-line guy, but if I'm a new guy coming on and this is part of our culture and I've now adopted this culture because the supervisors seem to condone it, that's unfortunate and that's not right."

In written responses to an extensive list of questions, the city said it disputed some of the conclusions of the Spectator investigation but did not provide any specific rebuttals.

In response to questions about the number of hours worked by the waste collection operators, the city said the employees "have many duties outside curbside collected trash," but the city didn't provide specific examples.

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Overall, the city responded that the public sector component of Hamilton's waste collection is efficient, good value for taxpayers and performs better than the city's private-sector partner. "Are our crews achieving their performance targets — in other words, is the garbage getting picked up? I would suggest from what I know, yes," wrote city manager Chris Murray.

"Secondly, is there good value for money? I can tell you on the metrics we have, city crews have better performance than does the private sector, both on tonnage per household picked up and on the per-household cost compared to the private sector.

"Waste Management Operations has been one of the most consistently benchmarked and performance-measured service delivery programs since amalgamation," Murray added.

Derron Vernon, president of CUPE Local 5167, the union that represents the city's waste collection operators, echoed Murray's statement that the workers are both efficient and provide good value to taxpayers.

"Our waste collection operators work very hard to ensure residents' garbage is collected as early as possible in the day — so residential streets are clean and cleared of garbage and waste," Vernon said in written comments provided to The Spectator.

"Our members are dedicated public employees providing a valuable service on time and more affordably when compared with private contractors on the Mountain."

"This is a very physically demanding job and our members are committed to providing the best service in all weather conditions," Vernon added. "We take pride in our work and the services we provide to Hamiltonians."

In a bizarre turn of events, councillors at Wednesday night's city council meeting were briefed by staff on issues raised by The Spectator's investigation before the article had even been printed.

Last Friday, councillors received a lengthy memo from the head of the public works department that provided facts and explanations about the city's in-house waste collection system. The memo was sent hours after The Spectator had presented results of its investigation to city staff – and four days before the city provided responses to The Spectator's questions.

A copy of the memo was leaked to Hamilton's CBC.ca website, which then posted a story Wednesday containing reaction to The Spectator's as-yet unpublished investigation.

• • •

Hamilton's residential waste collection is a hybrid of the public and private sectors.

Unionized city workers collect household trash and organic green-bin waste in the lower former city of Hamilton, Dundas, Flamborough and a part of rural Ancaster.

The city uses a fleet of about 30 trucks a day with a complement of 54 workers during the winter season.

Green For Life Environmental (GFL), a privately held corporation, is responsible for all blue-box recycling collection for the entire city as well as the collection of household trash and organic matter in Stoney Creek, Glanbrook, Ancaster and on the Hamilton Mountain.

GFL was awarded the seven-year contract in 2012. The deal is worth just over $15 million per year and it runs from April 2013 to April 2020.

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The city's unionized waste collectors earn $25.34 to $27.54 per hour and they are paid for eight hours a day, which includes paid lunches and breaks.

GFL's employees are also unionized and the company said it has about 70 trucks covering routes in the amalgamated city of Hamilton.

Drivers for GFL who work on the contracted Hamilton routes are paid $17.95 per hour, according to one GFL driver.

Collectors are paid $13.50 per hour.

"And they work like dogs," said the driver, who requested anonymity because the driver feared reprisals for speaking to the media.

"I can't tell you how many times my loader fell today because he was slipping on black ice," the driver said a day after a heavy snowstorm left roads slick.

According to the driver, GFL employees clock in at 6:15 a.m. and they are paid for the number of hours they work each day.

A GFL administrator said that a typical work day for the company's employees covering the City of Hamilton routes is between nine and 11 hours.

On the day after a heavy March snowstorm, for example, about half of the city's fleet had already returned to the Burlington Street East facility by 12:15 p.m. Meanwhile, on the same day, more than half of the GFL fleet were still out on the road after 5 p.m.

"I respect our union in that they're realistic about the kinds of income you make in this business," said the GFL administrator, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

"That is standard in this industry, particularly in Ontario," he added.

The GFL administrator declined to comment on the city's unionized waste collectors, other than to describe the situation as "a political issue."

"I think we do a fabulous job," said the GFL administrator. "We save the city millions of dollars.

"We feel very confident that we provide good service, and if we weren't doing that, the city wouldn't keep us as their service provider."

Ironically, a city report from 2001 that examined the issue of waste privatization recommended maintaining some trash collection with city workers to help keep the private sector on its toes.

"Maintaining a blend of both public and private service will prevent a monopoly from being developed, yet instil a competitive attitude among service providers," the report stated.

The city was also going to structure contracts with the private sector to specify performance measures and penalty clauses for nonperformance.

"Likewise, it will be essential that public service providers match any similar performance measures," the report noted.

Information Update - Waste Collection Operations by The Hamilton Spectator

- Waste collection: The city's answers to the Spectator's questions

- A day in the life of a waste collector

- Berton: Optics are fuzzy indeed

- No plans to change setup of city waste collection