Drug test all laborers, Streets and San boss says

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Dwight Washington

Updated: September 1, 2011 12:18AM

Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne called Thursday for laborers to be tested randomly for alcohol and drugs to prevent a repeat of the Gold Coast accident that saw a city laborer accused of driving drunk plow into a crowded sidewalk, injuring seven people.

“They have random drug and alcohol testing for everybody in the Police and Fire Department. We shouldn’t be any different than them,” said Byrne, a retired Chicago Police officer.

“Obviously, that’s a collective bargaining issue we have to bring up in regards to the unions and contracts and working with the city to rectify that.”

Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Local 1001, said Thursday that “no one has even reached out” to the union to talk about such a change. But, he said, “If they’re operating machinery and vehicles on a regular basis, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

Prosecutors say 61-year-old laborer Dwight Washington had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit — and an open bottle of brandy on the seat next to him — when he allegedly drove his city Ford F-150 pickup onto a Gold Coast sidewalk filled with pedestrians last Saturday.

Witnesses have told police that Washington accelerated as he drove onto the curb at 7 E. Cedar at around 12:20 p.m. Seven people were injured, including a 20-month old, the heroic nanny who pushed the child out of the way and a 58-year-old.

Random drug and alcohol tests are currently required only for city employees who hold commercial drivers licenses. Since Washington was a laborer assigned to empty garbage cans and collect stray debris, he was not subject to that requirement.

Laborers are tested only after getting into accidents on the job. Washington was tested after a job-related accident in March 2010 that resulted in property damage, but his test “came back negative,” officials said.

On Thursday, Byrne was asked to explain how the supervisor on duty last Saturday could have eyeballed Washington in an allegedly drunken state and still handed him the keys to a city truck.

“He didn’t see him drunk. That doesn’t say that [Washington] was drunk at 6 o’clock in the morning when he came in,” Byrne said.

The commissioner refused to say whether the supervisor would be disciplined. But he stressed that supervision is about to get a whole lot tighter.

“We were in the process of promoting four more foremen for down in the Loop. That’s gonna happen in the next week, which was already on schedule” before the accident, he said.

“These new foremen and the old foremen will be [required to attend] a new supervisor school that was all set up to do before the incident [to] bring `em into leadership and responsibility of foreman and what they’re truly supposed to do on the street. We’ve got GPS equipment out there. We’re always monitoring that. We’re monitoring supervision, movement of the trucks and foot walkers in the Loop.”