Who will man garbage trucks?

TOLEDO - Before Toledo fully executes its plan for fully-automated garbage collection, where a truck does most of the work, many are questioning what will happen to those who used to pick-up garbage.

The sticking point now is whether city employees will man the trucks or a private company.

Instead of just picking one, some city council members suggested Tuesday evening something called "managed competition" where the private company does some, city workers do the rest.

"There's a potential for saving cost this year, in 2009, if we did managed competition," said Councilman Joe McNamara. "There'd be less of a capital expenditure for the trucks next year because we would need trucks for the entire city."

A sticking point has emeged - any union worker that loses their job in garbage detail would have to be given a job in something like water or sewer. It's not clear if there are enough jobs for all those workers.