Toronto contractors ripped

I have never gone after municipal contracts, but was always under the assumption that the tender was for the completed job? Not an hourly rate...if a contract has been tendered and it is awarded to company x for $2000 and it only takes 2.5 hours then so be it. I guess someone should have came in at a lower bid. It is unfortunate that it is making urban foresters/arborists in Toronto look bad...I work in this area and most private companies and pushing hard just to be able to afford cost of living here
 
Our contract is for removals that either our crews can't complete due to lack of equipment or we are in a backlog situation. Pricing is based on DBH ranges. If it takes a day or a week, the price is the same. after our March 3rd tornado, our crews were swamped with cleanup in the storm area and our contractor was given $40k in removals that we couldn't get to that were ASAP and we still rented his grapple truck in the storm area for $3K a 40 hour week.
 
oldoakman said:
Our contract is for removals that either our crews can't complete due to lack of equipment or we are in a backlog situation. Pricing is based on DBH ranges. If it takes a day or a week, the price is the same. after our March 3rd tornado, our crews were swamped with cleanup in the storm area and our contractor was given $40k in removals that we couldn't get to that were ASAP and we still rented his grapple truck in the storm area for $3K a 40 hour week.
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Similiar here, we award bids based on a flat rate quote
 
ATH said:
It doesn't say...but my assumption is that they bid time and materials instead of fixed price???
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Davey and a few other companies low ball the bid $105.00 an hour for bucket truck , chippers and 2 guys! Yeah thanks for driving the industry down! On top of that one of the top Toronto forestry guys brother is also near the top of the Davey food chain. Hmmmmmmm no conflict of interest there! That number of 2.8 hours of actual work is pretty bang on. @RyTheTreeGuy
 
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Ya it's wild that they can send crews out to work for that money- I'm not 100% but I think city of Toronto has a wage match thing in their contract as well. So these workers are being paid average to above average. There can't be much money to be made after paying the crew etc. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this will be.
 
For whatever reason, Toronto does not divert the necessary resources to clearly identify the scope of work. If they did, they would be able to put together tenders for a defined scope of work which would be billed at a flat rate thus incentivising efficient completion. Instead, they just know they have work to be done and they bring in crews at an hourly rate. This has been the way they have done it for years. I worked on contract for them through Davey years ago and it was the same then. We would just go and get work orders the same way the City crews would. The City is then relying on crews being ethical and not taking advantage of the lack of direct supervision (e.g. reporting duplicate work orders, working steady throughout the day, not watering stumps lol.) It is, in many ways, an honour system which is clearly a terrible idea.

People in supervisory roles at the City should be held accountable for not doing adequate work completion monitoring and quality control. This could have been identified as a problem way sooner if the people in charge of supervising these crews were actually keeping track of their progress and auditing their work. I remember the supervisors I worked for at the City keeping a pretty close eye on the number of work orders completed and having a pretty good knowledge of the outstanding work to be completed - I guess that has changed.

@adolan You are correct about the wage match thing too, at least that is how it was in 06', 07', 08.

Yet another disgraceful example of government waste of tax dollars.
 
What is the per hour rate the guys on the ground are getting? What other expenses do employers have for the pleasure of employing somebody in CA? (Here, we pay: Worker's Comp (+/-20-30%), FICA (6.2%), and insurance (variable depending on what company offers.)
 
Reliable tree man said:
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People in supervisory roles at the City should be held accountable for not doing adequate work completion monitoring and quality control. This could have been identified as a problem way sooner if the people in charge of supervising these crews were actually keeping track of their progress and auditing their work.....
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I agree with that 100%. It is not "OK", but it is human nature that people will get by with as little as they can do and still get by. If no body is watching that that becomes the culture over many years that is because nobody has instructed them otherwise. My guess is if a new energetic guy is hired and starts working his tail off, his co-workers will tell him to slow down and take a rest
 
I'd be really worried about my future employment if I was responsible for these crews. Probably see a few managers/ supervisors lose their jobs and maybe see a company lose a contract.
 
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JD3000 said:
Does Toronto not have City Foresters that these crews should be reporting to? This is ridiculous
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They do, in each yard a supervisor gives them there daily work orders, they are supposed to have someone monitor the contractors work and quality of it in each yard as well, some are just not doing that. That’s will change after this audit I bet :baaa:
 
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