The union representing city workers says the threat of layoffs is just another example of broken election promises by Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

In a press release published Friday, the vice president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 said Ford should sit down with front-line workers and discuss how to make city operations run more efficiently rather than resort to "threats and bullying."

"Just a week before his election, Mayor Ford released a video on YouTube that pledged no layoffs, since he could achieve any workforce reductions through attrition," Dave Hewitt said.

"His comments are yet another in a long line of broken promises he has achieved in less than a year in office,"

Earlier on Friday, York-West Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti told CTV Toronto that a cut in the city's workforce might be necessary to wrestle down the city's $774-million budget shortfall.

"Layoffs are on the table and that's a reality that we have to look at," Mammoliti

The grim announcement comes a month after the Ford administration offered 17,000 city workers a buyout package to avoid nixing any employees.

But it appears that city workers aren't buying into the city's buyout offer, Mammoliti said.

"It hasn't been as favourable as we would have wanted so it puts us in a very difficult situation," he said.

Hewitt said he suspects the reason few employees have taken up the City's offer is because they know it's an unfair deal, both for the city and for them personally.

"We all know that every single buyout equals a reduction of services that our neighbourhoods depend on," he said.

But with the multi-million budget shortfall in mind, Mammoliti said he encourages more workers to accept the package to dodge the possibility of having their job cut by the end of the year.

However, Toronto Centre-Rosedale Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam said the buyout's low-response rate might be evidence that the package doesn't offer enough.

"If an employee is not interested in an employer's buyout package perhaps there's not enough incentive tied into it," she told CTV Toronto.

The buyout package offers unionized staff three weeks of severance pay for every year of service. City managers have been offered four weeks of severance for each year of service, up to a total of six months.

But regardless of what the package offers, one city worker said she plans to hold on to her job for as long as she can.

"I'm actually quite worried but I think I have to figure out what the future holds for me," said a female city worker in front of City Hall.

The deadline for city employees to apply for the buyout package is Sept. 9.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson