Emanuel: Too many garbage crews calling in sick to extend weekend
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com September 27, 2011 4:30PM
Streets and Sanitation workers were among the city employees to earn $10,000 or more in overtime. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times
Updated: November 11, 2011 4:10PM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday turned up the heat on garbage collection crews he has accused of chronic absenteeism — by releasing records that he said show a pattern of abuse on Mondays and Fridays.
In the 13-month period ending on Aug. 31, an average of 40 laborers a day had “unscheduled absences” on Mondays, roughly 6.6 percent of the daily workforce of 600. That’s compared to 27 unexcused absences or 4.5 percent on Thursdays.
On Fridays, 5 percent of the workforce was on unscheduled days off.
Bar graphs posted on the city’s website show a similar pattern for truck drivers. Their absenteeism averaged 19 on Mondays and dropped to 13 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
In a press release issued by the mayor’s office, Emanuel said the absenteeism charts would be updated monthly to “increase accountability and enhance services” for Chicago taxpayers.
“Chronic absenteeism forces us to reduce tree trimming and rodent control in order to perform garbage collection,” he said.
“As the city faces unprecedented financial challenges, I am committed to protecting the taxpayers and spending every dollar with the absolute certainty that we are providing residents with the services they depend on at the lowest possible cost.”
Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Union Local 1001, said the records released Tuesday underscore his argument that the city’s long-standing claim of a 33 percent daily absenteeism rate was exaggerated by lumping together employees who call in sick with those on duty disability and restricted duty.
“These people are the best laborers in the world. Are there bad apples in every bunch? Yes. But, I state at my meeting every month, `You have to come to work.’ I tell them every month that absenteeism is not acceptable, but it does happen,” Phillips said.
“You’ve got people who worked for two years and got comp time for overtime and they’re being refused comp time, so they’re taking the day off anyway. Sometimes, people have a doctor’s appointment. I have one guy who had a family member pass away and was given a hard time about getting time off. Along with discipline should come compassion.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that Emanuel met with ward superintendents last week after reviewing some of the same reports that City Hall released Tuesday.
He told them that absenteeism by a “few bad apples” had forced an unacceptable level of cutbacks in rodent control and tree-trimming services. And he warned the ward superintendents who supervise garbage collection crews that, if they fail to “manage it tightly” and come down hard on chronic abusers, they will be “held accountable.”
On Tuesday, Phillips noted that the city is down roughly 300 sanitation laborers since 2007 due to retirements, deaths, firings, and injuries on duty that have left employees on restricted duty.
“That puts a stress on manpower. They need to hire people,” Phillips said.
Earlier this year, the Sun-Times reported that Streets and San had made dramatic cutbacks in forestry and rodent control services as it struggled to sweep the streets and pick up garbage amid a two-year hiring freeze and chronic absenteeism.
Then-Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel responded by laying down the law to the unions.
“A 33 percent daily absentee rate has put the city in the position that it’s making choices between services it need not make. …That’s unacceptable to the city,” Emanuel said then.
It’s not the first time City Hall has sounded the alarm about absenteeism.
In 2008, then-Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Michael Picardi told aldermen he was shrinking 80 more garbage crews from two laborers on a truck to one to solve a vexing absenteeism problem that sidelines nearly one third of all laborers every day.
“I can’t afford to budget for 30 percent relief. If we did, it would cost the city $19 million,” Picardi said then.
At around that same time, then-Inspector General David Hoffman concluded that Chicago garbage collection crews work less than six hours a day and get “paid to do nothing” for 25 percent of their time on the clock.
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