By Mario deSantis and reviewed by James F. deSantis, August 21, 1999

Saskatoon city manager Rick Tomaszewicz was fired last week for what mayor Dayday calls "incompatible management style"(1). Incompatible management style is not a reason for dismissal and therefore the city of Saskatoon will incur an immediate liability of $110,000 along with a sizable additional money to cover the break of a four year contract, loss of reputation, and other damages. Tomaszewicz was just hired eight months before on January 1 and given the mandate to cut costs by downsizing the city administration(2). With the approval of city council, Tomaszewicz cut the city's departments in half, and in this process some 30 employees were let go.

Tomaszewicz' dismissal has caused an uproar among councillors, city employees, and citizens at large. Notwithstanding the uncertainties for the liability caused by the firing of Tomaszewicz, most people feel that the downsizing will result in long-term savings for the taxpayers. Phil Richards, corporate services general manager with the city says " ...I know it will be over a million dollars. We are looking at 30 staff members... Remember, that's a one-time expenditure. We anticipate recouping the amount of money in one to two years..."(3) Phil Richards' expertise in manipulating numbers goes far beyond his interest to care for the needs of the dismissed employees to the extent that he doesn't know that lost time, waning productivity, and devastated morale create hidden costs, which can far outweigh the usual cost-savings predicted from layoff(4).

In a changing economy where people and knowledge are the most important resources, our leaders are still playing a power game, based on greed, politics, secrecy, likes and dislikes, and short-term speculations with downsizing(5). Nobody is concerned anymore about the social cost of cutting people out of their jobs. The city hires an outside hatchet man to carry downsizing(6), and the hatchet man covers his assets with an appropriate employment contract. As a consequence, everybody suffers, except our leaders and mayor Dayday. The people who suffer are the employees being axed, the surviving employees struggling with their anxiety of being next in line of being fired, and the taxpayers at large who bear the costs of mismanagement and related deterioration of services. Abrupt cutbacks is a definite sign that management has been incompetent(7), and this is the case for mayor Dayday. as well as for a large segment of our elite who find in destruction and disorganization the means for maintaining their leadership and for showing their macho behaviour(8).

In Saskatchewan, this disgraceful behaviour of our leaders has caused irreparable damage to our social and economic system(9), and has contributed to the discretional and unjust firing of many employees whose careers and family lives were destroyed for ever. I have been personally affected by this shameful behaviour of our leaders and as a consequence I will be writing few articles in this regard with the hope to bring social changes and facilitate alternatives to the phoney compassionate government of our Premier Roy Romanow.

Endnotes

1. City manager fired, by Kim McNairn, The StarPhoenix, Aug 13, 99, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

2. Councillors break silence, by Dan Zakreski, The StarPhoenix Aug 14, 99, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

3. Shakeup tab in millions, by Kim McNairn, The StarPhoenix Aug 17, 99, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

4. The Wages of Downsizing, MotherJones, July/August 1996. Refer to Alan Downs, Ph.D., an industrial psychologist and business writer in New York City. His recent book on layoffs, Corporate Executions, was published by the American Management Association. http://www.mojones.com/mother_jones/JA96/downs.html

5. From Both Sides Now Organizational Downsizing: What Is the Role of the Practitioner?, by Allan H. Church, http://www.css.edu/users/dswenson/web/dnsize5.htm

6. Next city manager should keep back to the wall, by Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix Aug 17, 99, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

7. The Hocus-Pocus of Reengineering, by Paul A. Strassmann, Across The Board, June 1994 http://www.strassmann.com/pubs/hocus-pocus.html

8. Downsizing Study by Dr. Marc Mentzer, University of Saskatchewan marc.mentzer@commerce.usask.ca http://www.usask.ca/events/news/articles/19961022-3.html

9. Refer to articles written by Mario deSantis and published in The North Central Internet News, http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/authors/desantis.html