The city’s garbage politics
Thursday, Oct 9, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The big deals are done without a hitch…
The City Council on Wednesday gave lightning-fast approval to Mayor Daley’s $2.5 billion plan to privatize Midway Airport, despite an alderman’s complaint that the blockbuster deal was “shoved down our throats.”
* And more nanny state ordinances are passed…
By unanimous vote Wednesday, the City Council expanded the 2005 restriction that forbids talking on hand-held cell phones while behind the wheel. Violators could face a $75 fine, with the penalty rising to as much as $200 for violations that occur “at the time of a traffic accident.”
* But the city’s media is all atwitter about the latest apparent incident of the failure of political patronage…
Chicago garbage collection crews work fewer than six hours a day — and get “paid to do nothing” for 25 percent of their time on the clock — costing taxpayers at least $14.3 million a year, according to an internal investigation denounced as a “witch hunt.”
During a 10-ward, 10-week surveillance, Inspector General David Hoffman found that waste and falsification of time in the Bureau of Sanitation is “systemic and pervasive and extends to all wards,” aided and abetted by poor supervision by layer upon layer of middle management.
* The allegedly poor performance wasn’t just “aided and abetted by poor supervision,” it was apparently the root cause…
[The inspector general] identified “extremely poor supervision” as the “principal cause” for the waste and fraud that Chicago taxpayers can ill afford.
* The Sun-Times editorial focuses mostly on the workers, but way down in the piece is this truism…
Supervision of garbage crews must improve. As the report notes, any boss “mildly interested” in making sure their garbage crews were working wouldn’t have to do much to ensure they were. It doesn’t take an agent from “CSI” to notice a garbage crew worker sleeping in his car.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to notice when a worker goes missing for two hours for a leisurely lunch — as the inspector general’s team noticed.
Worker productivity is the supervisors’ responsibility. It’s a bit different in a patronage system because workers are often “protected” by their sponsors. But a good supervisor can usually get around that problem. Trouble is, the supervisors are also patronage guys.
* Union leaders point to the mayor’s desire to lay off a bunch of garbage workers as the reason behind this probe…
“My members are out there to do a job, and they do the job well,” said Lou Phillips, business agent for Laborers Local 1001.
He said city officials have told him to expect 302 of his 1,100 members to be laid off after Daley proposes his 2009 budget next week.
Chicago Federation of Labor leader Dennis Gannon thinks the timing of the report is not coincidental. “It’s a cheap shot,” he said.
* The Tribune goes to a productivity expert for his take on the investigation…
It’s the attention to minor offenses that raises eyebrows among productivity experts. They say the inspector general would be hard-pressed to find an American office in which workers don’t tackle personal chores on company time or begin their morning chit-chatting.
“That happens in most workplaces,” says John Gallagher, chief executive officer of the Challenger, Grey and Christmas outplacement firm. “To look at what the garbagemen are doing moment by moment is treating them like they’re children. You should treat employees as adults and judge how they’re handling their jobs.”
I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t about an excuse to privatize the system.
* Related…
* Council OKs $2.5 bil. Midway deal
* Aldermen tell wish lists for Midway lease proceeds
* Aldermen give thumbs-up to Midway privatization
* Airport income
* Daley to ask for homeowner property tax relief
* Alderman goes to bat for 127 towed for race
* Council delays vote on giving divorcing homeowners break
- Reality Check - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 10:42 am:
Before the usual suspects wheel out their tired old attacks on public service workers, let’s notice that the story played big on the cover of today’s Tribune is about the great job done by city health inspectors.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 10:54 am:
I don’t think Hoffman works in concert with Daley, does he? Haven’t they been at loggerheads? In other words, Daley could use the report to move on layoffs or privitization, but I doubt he instigated it.
Privatizing Streets and San would be a Battle Royale. Lots of clout in those jobs, lots of money to be made getting rid of them.
Still, I thought driving a garbage truck was like being a postal carrier. Once you were done with your route, you were done, no matter how long it took you. The trick was to continually adjust routes to maximize personnel.
- jerry 101 - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 10:58 am:
What a load. Once again the taxpayers of Chicago (and probably nationally, since Federal dollars undoubtedly went into Midway at some point) get screwed so that Daley can get $2.5 billion to give away to his cronies during the Olympic bid.
A 100 year lease on a major airport should be worth far more than $2.5 billion.
Anytime an asset that the taxpayers paid for is sold, the taxpayers are getting screwed.
Privatization is a load.
- jerry 101 - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:00 am:
By the way, the link for the suntimes midway story is broken. You left the “h” off of the “http”
- Cassandra - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:02 am:
Oak Park’s garbage system is privatized I believe. And although I complain about Oak Park a lot, I must say they do not loiter in the alleys when they pickup the trash. If they are loitering somewhere, it must be outside of Oak Park or in a very secret hideout. Maybe privatization is a good idea. At least it might shake the amazing complacency, even today, of so many government employees and, to be fair, elected officials as well.
Taxpayers can no longer afford to pay for “layer upon layer” of middle management which exists not only at Streets and San but in other city agencies and most certainly in state agencies as well. In the old days, they were cheap enough so that apparently it didn’t matter. Now there are not only way too many of them but they get upper middle class compensation packages that cost us a bundle–totally unconnected to performance.
We can no longer afford to support a huge management class in city or state government, with high salaries, low-cost health insurance, lucrative pensions–and no accountability.
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:06 am:
This is another example in an endless list of examples of Daley blaming others for his own failure to manage and corrupt hiring. He has been in office for over 20 years and now, just when he wants to cut positions, he finds out garbage men don’t work a full 8 hours and their supervisors don’t care.
If I were the union rep I would shut the town down and then see what he does with the trash
- The Doc - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:12 am:
The apparent justification spewed by the so-called “productivity expert” is not only garbage itself, but is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Government employees, by virtue of their accountability to taxpayers, should be held to a different and higher standard than those in corporate industry. Corporate employees are, with few exceptions, “at-will” employees. No collective bargaining, no union representation, and can be discharged and/or have their terms of employment amended for virtually any reason.
Government employees have many more built-in protections against reprimand, dismissal, and forfeiture of benefits. They maintain entitlements private sector employees never enjoyed, or were generally stripped of many moons ago.
I’m not knocking the work ethic or productivity of public sector employees in general. And Daley’s exposed himself to the conspiracy theories floated by the unions due to his history of patronage, waste, and graft. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and there’s simply no defense for this type of widespread idleness.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:13 am:
The reason we have city services is to ensure that a specific service is equally applied throughout the city. Garbage is a city health concern. How it is handled, trucked and processed is a city health issue.
So productivity is secondary to the health concerns behind garbage collection. If inspectors wished to report fairly, they would focus on the main purpose of city sanitation and whether Chicago’s health is ensured through the current process. Eavesdropping or stalking garbage collectors is focusing on the wrong priority.
Privatization will not meet our city’s needs if they fail to handle the process correctly. Cheaper doesn’t mean safer.
- Bill S. Preston, Esq. - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:25 am:
The text messaging law has me in a tizzy.
1) If you’re doing anything in your car that causes you to drive like an ass/idiot, can’t a cop pull you over under the guise of reckless driving?
2) What a waste of time. I’ve been known to eat a cheeseburger while driving between meetings. Will “no eating or drinking while driving” be the next law?
3) Will cops really be on “text patrol”? What good is a law if there’s no chance it’ll be enforced?
4) The likelihood that someone who is asked what the cause of an accident was and responds “Well, officer, you see, I was texting…” is slim to none.
Get it together, Aldermen. Did you all really have nothing better to do?
- Bluefish - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 11:25 am:
Let’s see. The garbage collectors only work for 3/4 of the day. Daley wants to cut about 1/4 of them (not all of the 300 cut will be front line collectors). I may not be a “productivity expert” but to me it looks like the math works.
- Angry Chicagoan - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 12:25 pm:
The Midway deal is a crock — the airport sold at a grossly undervalued price at the bottom of the market on a lease deal so long that most kids being born now will be dead before it expires.
With this move, Daley finally disqualified himself from my vote next time — following a long line of local Democrats who have also done the same thing.
I thought the Olympics might be therapy for Illinois politics. The more I look at it, the more I feel it’s just an opportunity for them to rationalize. Maybe the best therapy would be Chicago getting eliminated in the first round of voting.
- Pat Collins - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 12:29 pm:
I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t about an excuse to privatize the system.
Where I live we have a big trash tote and a recycle tote. I didn’t think they were big enough when I got them, but in truth I’ve never come close to filling them.
The guy has a truck with automation to pick them both up and dump them in the truck.
One guy, no pulled muscles.
- Sacks Romana - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 12:43 pm:
The Midway deal is a crime. Why don’t we just privatize the entire city, and make Daley the CEO? It’s not like there’s any public accountability with our elected officials here anyway.
As far as the garbagemen issue goes… I don’t think most daily posters here are students, retirees, or on their lunch break.
- Vote Quimby! - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 2:03 pm:
==The team just won an award for national snow removal, Piccardi said==
Sure—aren’t they on overtime during snowstorms? How does that justify the results of watching not a single employee put in a full day? ==A few bad apples==? Maybe at the top…
- fed up - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 3:39 pm:
the midway deal is a crime is right. Whenever Daley needs a hatchet man to help take someone or something out Rich’s friends at the sun times can be counted on. We nned to cut the number of police sun times has an abundance of negative stories about the police. Streets and San sun times has a front page story. You would think the city hall reporters are Daley servants. I wonder if that great deal the Sun Times recieved in building there new printing plant in Daleys 11th ward has had any effect on the sun times independence.
- Leave a light on George - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 4:05 pm:
Public or private sector employee sleeping and drinking on the job ain’t right. If you can get by with it in full view of the inspector general or your boss you should be toast. Go you union employees.
- chic ster - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 4:12 pm:
As for Chicago’s garbage collectors……how much of your day to you spend blogging here?
- Scoop Brodski - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 4:22 pm:
If City garbage men are not working a full 8 hours it is the fault of supervisors and management. The top manager is the Mayor who has been in office a very long time. If this report is accurate, it means it has taken Daley 21 years to notice the problems at Streets and Sanitation. That is deplorable.
If he wants to fix the system he needs to start at the top-and that means him. Otherwise he is just scapegoatingcthe guys who do the work in favor of his mangers and commissioners.
21 years of waste and corruption only exposed because of political expedience-just deplorable.
- dixie - Thursday, Oct 9, 08 @ 9:10 pm:
80% of the City’s garbage pick up is already privatized, Rich.