Harrington, Friday, September 11, 2015 – Employees of the Township of Harrington in the Laurentians denounce the City’s questionable management of public funds. Information obtained through access to information shows that the municipality is paying more for its outsourced maintenance of Chemin De La Rivière-Maskinongé than if the work were performed by its own employees.

It costs taxpayers $102.00 when the work is carried out by Harrington blue collar workers. That amount includes salaries, gasoline and equipment. The work takes an hour, on average. When this same work is contracted out, it takes two and a half hours, on average, and costs the taxpayers $282.

« For several weeks, the City administration has insisted on outsourcing these contracts although they know full well that it costs less when the road maintenance is performed by their own blue-collars, » said Caroline Labelle, CUPE union advisor.

The same applies to household garbage collection, with contracts clearly demonstrating that the city pays double when outsourcing to private enterprise rather than using Harrington employees who used to perform both these tasks before the City made the move.

« Instead of giving the work to its own employees, the City persists in its poor management decisions and ill-advised spending of municipal taxpayers’ money, » noted CUPE economist Pierre-Guy Sylvestre.

With more than 112,700 members in Quebec, CUPE represents about 70% of the province’s municipal employees, who account for 31,600 of the union’s members. CUPE is also present in the following sectors: health and social services, communications, education, universities, energy, Quebec government corporations and public agencies, urban and air transport, and the mixed sector.