Oft-injured worker: 'The city is a dangerous place to work'

Thirteen times, Richard Rehder says he got hurt while working for Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation.

Each time Rehder "banged my knee, hurt my back, twisted my back,'' he filed a workers compensation claim.

The city has paid Rehder nearly $41,000, state records show. He still has one claim pending, over an injury to his right arm last year while working as a laborer.

Rehder got as little as $306.39, for an injury he reported to his left knee in 1988, while a tree trimmer.

His biggest settlement was $8,108.17, when he reported injuring his right arm in 1992.

In another case, he got $750 for a 5.8 percent loss of use of his left index finger. In another, he got $3,400 for a 20 percent loss of the use of his right big toe.

Rehder has never been on disability leave.

"I never missed work,'' he said. "Maybe a day, a couple days. That's about it.''

Rehder's name appears twice on the once-secret "clout list" kept by Mayor Daley's former patronage director. Once, Rehder was seeking a promotion with the help of the 36th Ward Democratic Organization, the other time with help from Bob Degnan, whose brother Tim Degnan is a top political adviser to the mayor.

Rehder, 45, who lives on the Far Northwest Side, said he didn't think there was anything noteworthy about having 13 injury claims. "Over 28 years, I don't think that's a lot of claims,'' he said.

Still, only 18 city employees have filed more workers comp claims than Rehder, state records show. Of the 14,246 city employees who filed claims since 1980, fewer than 3 percent filed six or more claims.

One of them is Michael Prine, a laborer with the city's Department of Fleet Management who has filed 14 claims, citing a variety of injuries he said caused him to miss a total of 1,383 days of work in the last years.

"I've been hurt a lot,'' said Prine, 52, who lives in Morgan Park. "The city is a dangerous place to work.''

The city has paid him more than $340,000 over his claims, agreeing he has lost 100 percent of the use of his left arm, 37.5 percent of his right leg, 25 percent of his left leg, 7.5 percent of his left foot, 5 percent of his right arm, 2 percent of his left hand, and 30 percent of "man as a whole," a catchall category.

Prine said he never asked for another job. And the city never gave him one. He always went back to work as a laborer. For a decade, he's been cleaning up a city garage in Bridgeport.

"I'm constantly in oil and dirt," Prine said. "The main reason I get hurt all the time is because the people -- the mechanics -- don't care. They drain the oil right on the floor. A lot of my injuries are from slipping and sliding and falling.''

Other clout-heavy employees with multiple injury claims include:

•   •   Thomas Scalfaro, who filed 13 claims before taking early retirement two years ago. One injury kept him off work for six months. The other times, he never missed work. The city paid him more than $86,000 -- including $1,000 for a shoulder strain deemed to have cost him a 0.4 percent loss of "man as a whole."

"These are benefits,'' said Scalfaro's attorney, Joseph Spingola. "If they're entitled to them, they should get them, big or small.''

Scalfaro's brother, Charles Scalfaro, runs the city's asphalt paving program. They are cousins of Bruno Caruso, a reputed mobster and former president of Laborers' International Union Local 1001, representing city laborers. According to the clout list, the Scalfaros sought promotions with the help of the 11th Ward Democratic Organization run by the Daley family.

•   •   Norman Kazmierski, who filed a dozen claims before he retired in 1998. The city paid him more than $110,000. He blamed most of his injuries on lifting manhole covers for the water department. Kazmierski, a member of the 32nd Ward Democratic Organization, said he couldn't get a new city job.

•   •   Daniel Iacullo, a bricklayer for the water department, who filed nine injury claims since 1984. Iacullo, 48, has settled seven of them, for more than $62,000. Iacullo declined to comment. According to the clout list, Iacullo's political patron was former city worker Michael Harjung, who hid his stake in a trucking company that bribed its way into the Hired Truck Program, according to plea agreements of two business partners convicted in the Hired Truck case. Harjung has not been charged.