Author: Mike Holman

Please note that this post is very Toronto-centric, very rant-like and also contains a fair bit of fantasy.  Your challenge will be to determine what is truth and what is  fiction.

I read in the Star today that apparently one of the negotiated items in the City of Toronto outside workers strike (aka “The Garbage Strike”) was for the union members to continue to accrue benefits such as sick leave and vacation days during the time they were on strike.  This is unbelievable – they were on strike – why would the city give them credit for anything?  And why stop there?  Why doesn’t the city just pay the workers for their time on the picket line (minus union pay of course).  And it wouldn’t have to be at their old pay, if the city had any heart at all then the “strike wages” would be paid at the new negotiated higher rate.

Kevin Sack who is the city spokesman (fun job) had this to say about it:

City spokesman Kevin Sack said yesterday that granting vacation and sick pay credits for time spent on strike is “standard practice” in back-to-work agreements.

Wow, thanks Kevin for that inside look at the City of Toronto’s bargaining strategy.  Was this issue even talked about or was it just assumed?

Let me just paraphrase Kevin ever so slightly and try to show what I think really happened:

City spokesman Kevin Sack said yesterday that “We got our asses handed to us and by the end of it all, we didn’t know which way was up. David and I were so busy trying to keep up with the union orders demands, that we didn’t know what we were agreeing to”.  “They made us wear women’s lingerie to the meetings, wash their cars before and after each meeting and they kept giving us ‘time outs’ in the corner if we disagreed with anything they said.  It was horrible”  he sobbed.

Another back to work item was the amnesty for various law-breaking union members in exchange for the union not punishing the small percentage of members who crossed the picket lines.  I could write a whole post in this issue but I’ll try to summarize my thoughts concisely (for the first time ever):

Amnesty for law-breaking strikers – As Mark Ferguson – head of local 416 put it:

“The City wanted to terminate and prosecute those few who got a little excited on the picket lines. We made sure of amnesty for everybody involved. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!” he said.

I’m just glad that Mark made those comments at the end of the strike and not the beginning otherwise we might have seen 6 weeks of murder and mayhem in Hogtown as 30,000 members run wild through the streets knowing that amnesty would be on the the way.

“Union promises not to punish scabs” – Another quote from Ferguson:

In exchange for City-sanctioned amnesty, the union made what Mr. Ferguson called “the difficult decision” not to punish what the union calls “scabs” — unionized workers who crossed picket lines during the strike.

So the union *promises* not to retaliate against the scabs?  I really hope that Miller insisted on the “cross my heart and hope to die” promise otherwise this will be the first part of the agreement that gets tossed out the window.  I mean really…is the city going to monitor this somehow?  Very naive agreement from the city.

What about David Miller as mayor?

I have to admit that I like David Miller, he’s smart guy, well-spoken, obviously competent at a lot of things and he seems to be doing a reasonable job of running the city.  He has a lot of good qualities except for quite possibly the one thing that the city really needs in a mayor – the ability to negotiate.  Miller has always been known as a “friend of the unions” which doesn’t bode well considering he’s on the other side of the table now but I just think that like myself, he’s just a bad negotiator.  Miller would have sold Manhattan Island for a better price than the natives plus he would have added some benefits as well.  For this reason I think that he would be better of in the private sector where he can use his skills and lying spin ability to forge a good career. In an ideal world it would be great if he could hired to lead the 416 union but that is unlikely to happen (to put it mildly).

I’ve written before about how the big 3 car companies got smoked by the unions every single time their contracts came up and I think part of the problem stems from the fact that a car company CEO gets hired for a lot of talents – negotiating ability is only one talent which may or may not be present in a candidate.  Union leadership on the other hand only requires one talent – the ability to negotiate.  I think that companies and governments in unionized environments should add negotiation skills to their CEO talent searches in order to compete with the unions.

Mike and Mr. Cheap will help decide the next mayor of Toronto

Yes, that’s right – I haven’t told Mr. Cheap yet (shhhh) but I’ve decided that after the silliness of the last little while, the political landscape needs to change in Toronto.  With that in mind here are the changes which will take place.

No more voting for the Mayor – it will be appointment

While Miller was a reasonable choice for mayor, the fact that Lastman got elected clearly indicates that the voters of Toronto have no idea what they doing and won’t be allowed to vote anymore.  Voting for Lastman because of those Bad Boy commercials was stupid and I’m sorry I did it.

Mr. Cheap and I will decide the candidates

The 2 candidates to be considered for Mayor will be selected by myself and Mr. Cheap with one selection each.

Toronto city council will decide who the mayor will be from our 2 candidates

The reason that Mr. Cheap and I won’t make the final decision on the mayor is because we really don’t know the city operations and politics very well.  Plus we really don’t care that much.  Having watched some of the scenes from city hall on the news last week it’s clear to me that city council is not the tight-knit political SWAT team that I had imagined it to be but they have a good (I hope) grasp of the inner workings of the city so they can have the final choice.

So without further adieu…here is my choice for the next election

Mark Ferguson for Mayor!

Yes, Ferguson – the “stays in Vegas” guy I quoted earlier.  Clearly this guy can negotiate and that is the #1 skill that I am looking for in a candidate considering the large budget shortfalls Toronto will be facing.  As he said to his union “We didn’t give up shi*”.  While this omitted the fact that the union did the time-honoured negotiating tactic of selling out each and every future member, he was right.  If this was a hockey game the score would have been 10-1 for the union.

Won’t he have a problem negotiating against his old union?  Not this guy – Ferguson is a negotiator first and union member second.  When Gretzky faced the Oilers in the playoffs in 1989 as a King, did he let up in any way because the Oilers were his old team?  I don’t think so.

What do you think?  Who should Mr. Cheap pick as his candidate?  Who would you pick and why?

Well, the garbage (and others) strike is over here in Toronto – I have to say that I thought Miller caved in the end.  My only question is – couldn’t he have gotten this crappy deal a lot sooner?  Most Torontonians weren’t inconvenienced by the strike very much but a lot of businesses were as well as low-income families who lost their daycare.  Oh well – it’s not like it really matters that much.  New York City went bankrupt (or did they?) and they seem to be doing ok.

The big issue for this strike was the sick day banking policy where workers can bank up to 18 sick days (that’s a lot of sick days!) and then take half their future value upon retirement.  For a long-time employee it could result in a maximum of 6 months extra pay upon retirement.  Sweet deal – no wonder they wanted to keep it.

David Miller (Mayor of Toronto) had said that his goal was to eliminate this policy and wanted a deal where existing banked days were paid out and no new days could be accrued.  Fair enough, I can get behind that.  6 weeks later he caves and strikes a deal where the existing sick bank policy is unchanged for existing workers – only new hires won’t be able to bank sick days.  That will save a lot of money…in about 25 years.

To be honest I don’t think the ability to bank sick days is the biggest deal around – I had no idea the City of Toronto employees had it until a couple of months ago, plus lots of other unions have it.  As much as I’d like to see it gone – it’s not going to change my life much either way.

However, the annoying thing about this particular cave-in is that I’m positive this deal could have been done at the beginning of the strike.  Of course I could be wrong since I wasn’t at the table but that seems to be what I’m reading in the papers.  If you are going to try to force the union to make a major concession then you have to ready for a long strike, if not then don’t bother with the strike.  The funny thing is that I think most Torontonians were behind Miller since everyone who doesn’t work for the city thinks the union workers are all a bunch of overpaid slackers.  Miller had a golden chance to get a good concession – if not on the sick bank, then on something else and he blew it.

If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’

One of the oddest thing I read in the paper today was a description of the David Miller news conference where he kept trying to insist that the sick day banking policy had been “eliminated”.  Here is an excerpt from the Toronto Star from the news conference which was strangely reminiscent of the Monty Python dead parrot skit.

To add insult to injury, Miller now insists on selling spoiled goods. “We’ve eliminated the sick bank,” he said, 12 TV cameras rolling and frustrated reporters rolling their eyes yesterday. Torontonians should be “extremely pleased,” he said. And no doubt, at least the 30,000 strikers are – even if they are miffed at walking the picket line for five weeks to maintain the status quo.

But tried as he may, armed with lawyerly hairsplitting and a politician’s doublespeak, he couldn’t convince that Toronto’s five-week municipal strike was worth the trouble.

The sick-bank “phase-out” saves “millions and millions and tens of millions.” But asked to be specific, Miller said he didn’t know and refused to “speculate.”

Told that he couldn’t say the sick banks are ended when workers still have the choice of sticking with the old sick-days plan, Miller persisted:

“The provision is ended.”

“Why the doublespeak? Why do you continue to do this?” a reporter challenged.

“With great respect,” the mayor said, “I don’t think this is doublespeak; this is the fact.”

Well, you judge.

A 35-year-old civic worker, employed for 10 years, is entitled to continue banking 18 sick days a year, and do so for the next 30 years – and the mayor says the provision is ended.

Pushed and cajoled, Miller adopted a compromise offered by Star reporter Donovan Vincent. “Phase-out.”

Some Links From Around the Web

Baker from Man vs. Debt has another great update from his big voyage to Australia and now New Zealand with his family.

Baker also sent this “motivational” link – I have to admit it was quite inspirational…

Million Dollar Journey gave some advice to a reader about paying down debt or investing – I thought his advice was spot on.

Financial Blogger tells an interesting story about a friend of his who flew his girlfriend to London (the overseas one) for a weekend to propose.  While this sounds neat I thought this was a bit over the top.  Personally I’d rather do the proposal somewhere cheap (like my living room for example) and then spend the money on a honeymoon later on.

The rest of the links

The Dividend Guy talks about alternative investments.

The Oblivious Investor wrote about low-cost, socially responsible mutual funds.

Top Economy Blog says that the economic recovery has started.  But it might take a while

Canadian Capitalist did a review of Scotia iTrade discount brokerage.

The Intelligent Speculator says that Yahoo is toast.

Good Financial Cents has some Cash for Clunkers Tax Rules.

Investing School has a comparison of online brokerages (American).

ABCs of Investing wrote about the risks of fixed income investments (such as bonds).

Money Ning did a Trade Monster review.

Carnivals

Festival of Frugality

Carnival of Money Hacks

A common financial strategy for someone who is trying to pay off their debts is to allocate some of their savings into a different account which might be used for some sort of fun.  The idea is that while you want to focus on paying off debts – ie have some gazelle intensity, you should also be realistic about your focus and give yourself some rewards along the way to stay motivated.

I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do although I would argue that someone who has excessive debt has already had their fun and then some.  One problem however is that sometimes people will make a purchase saying that they “saved for it” or “paid cash for it” which makes it a financially responsible action.

The fact is that if you have money in cash instead of using it to pay off debts, then you are essentially borrowing that money at the rate of your highest interest rate loan minus the net amount of interest earned on the cash (which these days is jack squat).  This is the logic behind not having a cash emergency fund (or not having a large one) since you are paying a high premium to keep the money in cash.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who has any debts shouldn’t buy anything non-essential until the debts are gone, nor am I suggesting that you can’t have some fun along the way.  What I would suggest is that you shouldn’t base any purchase decisions on how much cash you might have on hand but rather on your overall financial situation which includes your goals.  At the very least, don’t pretend that some of your money is “special” and doesn’t apply to the rest of your finances – it’s all one big bucket of money and debts.

If you are committed to paying off some or all your debts before taking any rewards then you should stick to that goal.  Having some cash in a different account or receiving some sort of bonus shouldn’t affect your strategy at all.  This is not to say you can’t change your goals (I change mine all the time) but don’t cheat on your financial plan

I recently picked up a new digital (what else?) point and shoot camera. I’ve been the happy owner of a Canon Digital Elph from 2002 (2.1 megapixels) but in the last few years it started to fade. The battery doesn’t work as well and the speed of the shots, particularly inside photos was very slow – up to several seconds. This is tolerable for landscape scenery shots but for toddlers it just doesn’t cut it. Often we would try to take a photo of one of the kids and by the time the camera got its act together, the toddler would be in the next room.
Our solution was to buy a Sony DSLR A350 camera (which will be the topic of another post) because they are very quick. The drawback of the DSLR is the size – it’s like lugging around a separate piece of luggage if you go somewhere. It occurred to me that some of the great features of our DSLR like the anti-shake function should be available on a point’n shoot as well. I thought if I could get a camera that would take better pictures than my old Canon and the size didn’t increase then it might make a great “traveler” camera – one that I could take the kid’s park or on a bike ride.

Researching cameras

I knew that I wanted a modern day version of my old Canon – some quick Googling reassured me that the digital elph line was still around.  I then checked out a great post on how to buy a beginner digital camera over at “The Fox“.  I then exchanged a few emails with the royal Squawkers herself and got a whole bunch of more info on the topic.  Talking to other people can be quite helpful – especially if that person is “The Fox”.

The criteria

My criteria was very flexible but the basic criteria was as follows:

• Price under $500.
• Small and portable – ie similar to my old camera.
• Anti-shake function.   In my opinion this is a key feature that helps improve photos.

The choice

I narrowed the choice down to 2 great cameras:  The Canon PowerShot SX200 ($400 at FutureShop) which is basically the modern day equivalent to my old camera or the Canon Powershot G10 ($529 at FutureShop).  The G10 had more mega-pixels which I didn’t really care about but it seemed to be a pretty good camera that was rated quite favorably in Consumers Reports.  The drawback of the G10 compared to the 200sx was size – although not a big camera the 200sx was significantly smaller than the G10.  I decided to go with the Canon 200sx since it fit the bill exactly for what I wanted.

The purchase

I bought the camera at Future Shop for $400 (since reduced to $379).  I also got an 8 GB memory card (there isn’t one with the camera) and a camera bag ($21).  I decided to try my “negotiating” skills when purchasing and asked the salesperson if I get a reduction in price for any of the items.  She told me yes, I could get a “package deal” – I was pretty pleased with myself but what she did was lower the price of the camera to $330 and add in a $100 extended warrantee (4 years).  The net effect was that I could have the extended warrantee for $30.  I wasn’t going to accept it since I hate EWs (I think generally they are a ripoff) however I thought that paying less than 10% of the purchase price for 3 additional years of warrantee wasn’t a bad deal.  Normally the extended warrantee costs are 30-40% of the purchase price which makes it hard to come out ahead.  It also includes an “annual lense cleaning” which I had never had done on my old camera but I figured I could probably do it once before the warrantee ran out.

After-purchase thoughts

I’ve had the camera for a couple of weeks and it is fantastic.  It’s hard to believe how much difference there is in this camera and my old Canon.  Ironically I think I paid $500 for the old camera 7 years ago and my new camera cost $400 for something far superior.

Some things that I really like and didn’t necessarily expect:

• Picture quality.  I don’t really know anything about cameras or photography and most of my pics so far have looked pretty good.  Even the inside shots are pretty decent.
• Video.   The video quality is amazing.  I had assumed it would be a bit better than the rather bad video of my old camera but I was quite amazed at how good it was.  The camera has a speaker so you can listen to the video sound when replaying it on the camera.
• Zoom.   The zoom is quite impressive.  It doesn’t compare to a larger camera with the add-on zoom lense but it’s pretty good.  Again, a huge improvement over the old camera.
• Size and portability.  The camera is only a bit bigger than my old camera so it fits into a small camera bag and can be strapped onto my belt.  I have no problem taking it anywhere.  I knew this before I bought it but it’s still worth mentioning since it is one of the big benefits of this particular camera.

Read my review of the Sony DLSR A350 camera.