Canadian Law of Work Forum (CLWF)
  • Home
  • About
    • Professor David Doorey
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Submissions
  • Student Blog Initiative
  • Home
  • About
    • Professor David Doorey
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Submissions
  • Student Blog Initiative
Canadian Law of Work Forum (CLWF)
Law of Work Archive

A TTC Strike Costs the City 50 MILLION DOLLARS a DAY!! And Other Myths …

by David Doorey February 23, 2011
written by David Doorey February 23, 2011

Have you heard that a TTC strikes costs the city of Toronto $50 million a day!   Wow, that’s a lot.  Mayor Ford and his people have been citing this number like a broken record for weeks.  The media cites it in almost every story, as if it is fact.  Yesterday, the Liberal government introduced legislation banning TTC strikes.   In his speech introducing the legislation, the Minister of Labour said this:

Work stoppages at the TTC, according to a city of Toronto staff report issued in 2008, have an estimated economic impact of $50 million every workday. The impact of TTC service disruptions would send economic and environmental shockwaves across this province.

There is it again.  The number made it into the Minister’s justification for the law.  The economic cost to the City is the principal justification for the law, and the $50 million figure is the supposed “evidence” of this cost.   If the Minister is saying that a TTC strike costs $50 million a day, and the media, and Rob Ford, then it must be true.  Right?  Why would they say it if it wasn’t true?
Where Does The $50 Million Number Come From?
One theme in my courses and on this blog (see here and here) is that statistics and economics used to advance a particular labour law reform agenda should always be looked at suspiciously.  For example,  in this post, I questioned how the National Post uses statistics creatively to argue that raising the minimum wage causes all sorts of havoc on businesses and the economy, while giving CEOs and executives huge wage increases has no harmful effects whatsoever.  Stupid.  But if you just accept their numbers without question, you could believe this rubbish.

This $50 million figure has been thrown around recklessly by all of the advocates of a TTC strike ban and the media without any assessment of how it was calculated.  It is such a nice large figure that most anyone confronted with it would agree that it is a huge cost to impose for just the rights of a few people to strike.  It shapes the whole debate.
But what if it is nonsense?  Would that change the debate?

The $50 million figure comes from a “study” done at some point by the Economic Development, Culture & Tourism Division at the City.   However, few people have seen that “study”.  Was it done by a professional economist, or some guys with bachelor’s degrees in sociology?  I have no idea, and I doubt that the Minister of Labour does either.  What people are citing is not the “study” itself, but a Staff Report on the TTC by the City Manager in 2008 that refers to the “study”.  That report is available here [Amusingly, that report actually recommends NOT making the TTC an essential service after weighing all the economic implications]. Here is the extent of what it tells us about the mysterious $50 million dollar figure (p. 7):

According to the City’s Economic Development, Culture & Tourism (EDCT) Division, the main impact of a TTC strike would be a reduction in the total output of goods and services produced in the City, resulting from increased travel times and commuters making alternative work arrangements. Peak period commuters from the rest of Toronto to the Central Area are likely to suffer the greatest impact. Some people will work at home or will make arrangements to travel off peak. However, non-TTC commuters will also be affected, because increased congestion on the roads will increase travel times for all commuters. EDCT have estimated the short-term effects on the City of Toronto’s economy caused by a strike at the TTC are approximately $50 million per day (Monday to Friday). This estimate is based on the assumption that a TTC strike would reduce the total output of goods and services produced in the City of Toronto (over $500 million per day) by about almost 10%.

That’s all we got, folks.  That is the basis for the media and politicians’ claim that a TTC strike “costs $50 million a day”, and  the main justification put forward by the Government to justify the new law.
Are you convinced by this sophisticated calculation.  What is the scientific basis for the assumption that production in the City is reduced by 10% just because people have to find alternative arrangements to get to work or the roads are busier?  If people get to work one hour later than normal, are they staying one hour longer to make up for the time?  Are any short term economic impacts simply made up once the strike is over?  Are people who work from home less productive?  Does the calculation include the increased revenues of cab drivers, parking lots, gas stations, Go Transit, and hotels that will be busier because of the strike?  Is there any actual evidence that production decreased at all during TTC strikes, let alone by 10%?  Or is this simply a back-of-the-letter guestimate by a city bureaucrat?
The answer is that we have no idea.  We would need to study the report that invented this number and test  the calculations and assumptions used.  But no one engaged in the debate whether to ban TTC strikes has bothered to do this.  Politicians who want to ban TTC strikes found the number useful to their argument and they locked onto it without any thought about whether it is an accurate claim.  The media just accepted the number as fact.  This is how “economic” studies are often used in labour law reform debates.
My point is not that a TTC strike has no impact on the economy.  It is that the $50 million number could be complete fiction, and the public would have no idea, since there has been no informed discussion of how the number was calculated, tested, and verified.   But the Minister has now used the figure to justify a controversial law that significantly restricts labour rights.  Indeed, the main justification for the law, according to the government, is this economic impact on the City.
Do you think that a government relying on an economic statistic to justify a restrictive law should carefully examine how the statistic was calculated?
Without the $50 million claim, the economic justification for the law disintegrates, and the government would need to justify the law on some other basis, such as, O, I don’t know, we want the people who voted for Rob Ford to vote for us in the next election.
As I’ve said before, question any economic argument used to justify labour law reform and insist on knowing how calculations were made and what assumptions relied on.

1 comment
0
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is the Director of the School of HRM at York and Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and on the Advisory Board of the Osgoode Certificate program in Labour Law. He is a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a member of the International Advisory Committee on Harvard University’s Clean Slate Project, which is re-imaging labor law for the 21st century

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

previous post
The TTC Strike Ban Legislation
next post
Guest Blog: Paul Secunda on Wisconsin Governments Attack on Unions

You may also like

A Cross Country Update on the Card-Check versus...

October 3, 2018

A Successful Strike Vote is All That Stands...

September 16, 2018

Unifor Posts Photos of Replacement Workers as Gander...

September 10, 2018

A Wrongful Dismissal Case and the Absence of...

August 29, 2018

China Said to Quickly Withdraw Approval for New...

August 27, 2018

The Latest Hot E-Commerce Idea in China: The...

August 27, 2018

The Trump Administration Just Did Something Unambiguously Good...

August 27, 2018

Unstable Situations Require Police In Riot Gear Face...

August 27, 2018

Trump’s War on the Justice System Threatens to...

August 27, 2018

Putin Invites Trump to Moscow for Second Meeting...

August 27, 2018

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 225 other subscribers

Follow Us On Social Media

Twitter

Latest Tweets

CLWFFollow

CLWF
CanLawWorkForumCLWF@CanLawWorkForum·
17 Mar

New on @CanLawWorkForum from Prof David Doorey (@TheLawofWork)

#Uber #WorkerClassification #EmpLaw

David J. Doorey@TheLawofWork

Lots of chatter about Uber announcing it will kind of, sort of treat drivers as "workers" in the UK.

How does the UK's "worker" category compare to Canada's "dependent contractor" status? Some thoughts in my new post here on @CanLawWorkForum:

https://lawofwork.ca/uberworkerstatus/

Reply on Twitter 1372255751985631237Retweet on Twitter 13722557519856312371Like on Twitter 13722557519856312371Twitter 1372255751985631237
CanLawWorkForumCLWF@CanLawWorkForum·
10 Mar

Good day to reflect back on this recent timely post explaining the PRO Act that would dramatically alter U.S. labor law.

For labor law students:

What changes in the PRO Act are already law in all or parts of Canada?

David J. Doorey@TheLawofWork

A primer for Canadians by ⁦@Harvard_Law⁩’s Jonathan Levitan on what is contained in the U.S. Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO Act) which recently passed in the House south of the border.

(From ⁦@CanLawWorkForum⁩) https://lawofwork.ca/amp/bidenagenda

Reply on Twitter 1369671304274608134Retweet on Twitter 13696713042746081341Like on Twitter 13696713042746081342Twitter 1369671304274608134
Retweet on TwitterCLWF Retweeted
RSandillRicha Sandill@RSandill·
24 Feb

@SCLSclinic and I were so fortunate to represent this client last year. I am thrilled that this decision brings more clarity for family status accommodations rights amidst a pandemic that has tested parents, caregivers, and families like never before. https://twitter.com/CanLawWorkForum/status/1364605259071561730

CLWF@CanLawWorkForum

New from @RSandill (counsel for applicant), discussing important new "family status" discrimination decision from OHRT:

"Kovintharajah v. Paragon Linen & Laundry: When Failure to Accommodate Child Care Needs is “Family Status” Discrimination"

https://lawofwork.ca/13360-2/

Reply on Twitter 1364627677785821185Retweet on Twitter 13646276777858211851Like on Twitter 13646276777858211853Twitter 1364627677785821185
Load More...

Categories

  • Alberta
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Australia
  • British Columbia
  • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Childcare
  • Class Action
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Common Law of Employment
  • Comparative Work Law
  • competition law
  • construction
  • COVID-19
  • Diversity
  • Employee Classification
  • Employment Insurance
  • Employment Regulation
  • Europe
  • Financial Industry
  • Fissured Work
  • Freedom of Association
  • frustration of contract
  • Gig Work
  • Health and Safety
  • Health Care
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • Interest Arbitration
  • International Law
  • Labour Arbitration
  • Labour Economics
  • Law of Work Archive
  • Legal Profession
  • Manitoba
  • Migrant Workers
  • Minimum Wage
  • Nova Scotia
  • OLRB
  • Ontario
  • Pension Bankruptcy
  • Privacy
  • Public Sector
  • Quebec
  • Real Life Pleadings
  • Saskatchewan
  • Scholarship
  • Strikes and Lockouts
  • Student Post
  • Supreme Court of Canada
  • technology
  • Transnational Law
  • Uncategorized
  • Unions and Collective Bargaining
  • United States
  • Videos
  • Women and Work
  • Wrongful Dismissal
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive
Menu
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive

2020. Canadian Law of Work Forum. All Rights Reserved.