Unions contracted to work for the Toronto School Board have a history of shennanigans

Jimmy Hazel, head of the maintenance and Skilled Trades Council, which handles repairs at Toronto schools and grossly overcharges (see here)

With the provincial auditor recently reporting on financial shenanigans at the Toronto District School Board (see here), it's worthwhile recalling that the Board has a history of gross financial mismanagement. 

A big piece of the problem is that the unions are way too cozy with the provincial Liberals and with the Toronto School Board.  In the last provincial election, teacher unions, spent more than $6 million to get the Liberals elected and the Tories out.

As the for Toronto School Board, the majority of  trustees are elected with the help of unions and owe their first loyalty to the unions, not to the school kids, their parents or the people of Toronto. 

Neil Flagg (my candidate for School Board trustee in the last election) pointed out the problem during the last school board election in 2010 (see here). Over half of Toronto School Board trustees were (and are) owned by unions. Unfortunately, the media ignored the issue.

Most of the upper management at the Board, comes from the same place: they're card-carrying members of the NDP and/or big union supporters. 

I'm not against unions. In fact at Ryerson U, I'm a union member myself, and the only reason Ryerson pays me triple the pittance offered by community colleges is that we're unionized. 

However, I don't think unions should be running the school board. The Board is meant to run the school for the benefit of our kids, not for the benefit of union members.

Read this salvo from last year on a corrupt union whose members get a whole lot to do very little for our cash-starved schools… here