Hundreds of city workers earned over $10,000 in OT in four months
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter July 12, 2011 1:36AM
Streets and Sanitation workers were among the city employees to earn $10,000 or more in overtime. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times
Updated: July 12, 2011 2:07AM
Nearly 460 city employees each racked up more than $10,000 in overtime through the first four months of this year, fueling Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demand for the work-rule changes he says he needs to avoid 625 layoffs.
A hoisting engineer in the Department of Streets and Sanitation tops the overtime list, with $37,546 in payments through April 30, records show.
More than two dozen hoisting engineers, operating engineers and motor truck drivers in Streets and San and Water Management topped the $20,000 mark, with at least a dozen other Streets and San drivers close behind.
A foreman of motor truck drivers in the Department of Aviation raked in $30,728. A supervisor of animal care aides got $17,211.
Large overtime payments were also scored by: refuse collection coordinators; ambulance commanders; paramedics; stationary firemen; plumbers; machinists; mechanics; water filtration engineers; bridge operators; aviation communications operators, and police and fire communications operators assigned to the city’s 911 emergency center.
The overtime payments were made during the tail end of a two-year agreement that saw several unions substitute cash overtime for compensatory time.
That deal has now expired, which is likely to cause overtime to skyrocket unless labor agrees to Emanuel’s demand for work-rule changes.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley set the stage for a confrontation between his successor and organized labor by balancing his final budget with, what Emanuel calls “smoke-and-mirrors.” It anticipates a full-year of savings from unions concessions not yet negotiated.
At midnight June 30, an agreement expired that required unionized city employees to take the equivalent of 24 unpaid furlough days each year and substitute comp time for cash overtime.
Two weeks ago, Emanuel ended furlough days he called a “morale-killer” for the entire city work force and threatened to lay off 625 employees unless union leaders signed off on $20 million in work rule changes by the June 30 deadline.
When the deadline arrived, the new mayor — whose campaign got the cold shoulder from organized labor — backed off.
Instead of sending out layoff notices, Emanuel authorized $20 million in non-union budget cuts and gave union leaders two more weeks to pinpoint alternative savings. The new deadline is Friday.
Last week, the mayor turned up the heat on labor by going public with three of the nine work-rule changes he is seeking. They are: time-and-a-half for overtime, instead of double-time; a 40-hour work week, instead of 35 hours and straight-time for prepping a vehicle at the start of a shift instead of time-and-a-half.
The total estimated pricetag for those is $3.25 million.
On Monday, the Chicago Sun-Times uncovered a few more possibilities under review.
If an AFSCME employee gets called in for overtime and only works one hour, he or she has to be paid for four hours. A member of the building trades in a similar call out is paid for just two hours.
Laborers assigned to refuse collection get time-and-a-half for the first 2 1/2 hours of overtime, then double-time for every hour after that.
And barring an emergency, the city is prohibited from reassigning employees based on need without giving them 14 days’ notice. So, if Water Management is shorthanded at the North District and overstaffed at the South District, it can only ask for volunteers.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez and Lou Phillips, business manager for Laborer Local 1001, could not be reached for comment.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment