Mayor Emanuel: Crack down on absentee abuse in sanitation crews

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Chronic absenteeism plagues the Department of Streets and Sanitation, says Mayor Rahm Emanuel. | Brian jackson~sun-times

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Updated: November 11, 2011 1:13PM

Chicago’s 50 ward superintendents got their marching orders directly from the top: Crack the whip on chronic absenteeism that has forced deep cuts in rodent control and tree-trimming services.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked to meet directly with ward superintendents after reviewing reports on the productivity of city Department of Streets and Sanitation crews. He obviously wasn’t pleased.

On Thursday, the ward superintendents, who oversee those crews, gathered at City Hall and heard the mayor’s warning. Absenteeism by a “few bad apples” is spoiling it for hard-working employees and forcing cutbacks in rodent control and tree-trimming services that Chicago taxpayers should not have to do without.

If ward superintendents fail to “manage it tightly” and come down hard on chronic abusers, they will be “held accountable,” the mayor said.

Earlier this year, the city was forced to make 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 Emanuel responded by laying down the law to the unions — much as he did on Thursday.

“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.

“Residents and taxpayers and people [who] expect these services deserve better and they will get better. I ask the leaders of organized labor to be that partner in solving this problem.”

At the time, Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Local 1001, insisted that the daily absenteeism rate is more like 5 percent.

He accused the Daley administration of lumping together employees on duty disability and restricted duty with those who call in sick to “hide the fact that they don’t have enough bodies to do the job” Streets and San is supposed to do.

“If somebody is on duty disability because they got hurt on the job, I’m not Jesus Christ. I can’t heal ’em,” Phillips said then.

Phillips could not be reached for comment on Thursday’s meeting.

Emanuel has delivered the same warning during periodic stops at sanitation offices across the city.

On Oct. 12, the mayor is expected to unveil a 2012 budget that risks a City Council rebellion by switching from ward-by-ward garbage collection system to a grid system to save up to $60 million-a-year.

A managed competition between city crews and private contractors providing household recycling is expected to begin on Oct. 3.