CUPE 4705

By Angela Gemmill

Despite a promise of no job cuts, the City of Greater Sudbury laid off two cemetery workers last week and their union is fighting back.

President of CUPE Local 4705, Darryl Taylor, says that goes against what the mayor and the municipality promised earlier this year.

The city took six million dollars from Reserve funds to achieve a zero percent tax freeze in this year’s budget…and then spent the rest of the year looking for cost savings.

Taylor believes more layoffs will be announced in the coming days.

The union says these layoffs violate terms of the contract and they will be filing grievances.

No one from the union was a part of the committee looking for municipal cost savings.

Taylor says CUPE members would have the most knowledge about where taxpayers money is being wasted since they are front-line municipal workers.