union contract makes firings unlikely (90k with benefits)

[lostinblue 1,989]

City of Chicago is urged to get rid of 200 truck drivers who loaf

Inspector general says Chicago could save $18 million a year, but union contract makes firings unlikely

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.

Nearly $18 million a year could be saved by getting rid of 200 city of Chicago truck drivers who spend parts of their workday loafing or even sleeping, according to a report by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.

The recommended number of layoffs is equal to the drivers the inspector's general office identified as doing nothing more than taking other workers to job sites and waiting while those workers do their assigned tasks, according to the report.

The inefficiencies are essentially locked in place by the city's long-term contract with the Teamsters union that makes change nearly impossible, the report concluded.

Ferguson's staff began working on the report after seeing a city truck driver sitting in his vehicle last summer while another worker painted a curb and fire hydrant outside the inspector general's office, according to the report.

But even before that, the inspector general's office had received nearly 200 complaints since 2006 "about city truck drivers loafing or sleeping on the job," the report said.

Most motor truck drivers, or MTDs as they are known around City Hall, fill necessary roles and work efficiently plowing snow, picking up garbage and sweeping streets, the report states. But drivers who simply transport colleagues to repair lights, trim trees or kill rats are a drain of city resources, the report said.

"These positions are the ones in which MTDs transport personnel and equipment to job sites and then merely wait — generally getting paid to do nothing more than sit in a vehicle — while other city personnel perform various tasks," the report states.

The main reason for the extra truck drivers is a city contract with Teamsters Local 700 that makes it very difficult, and in the case of contractors nearly impossible, to transfer driving responsibilities to other employees, according to the report. The 10-year contract does not expire until June 2017.

Mayor Richard Daley entered long-term contracts with the city's unions in 2007 to eliminate any chance of labor strife as Chicago launched its ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. City revenues peaked that year.

The national economy tanked not long after that and Chicago, like other cities across the nation, faced mounting financial problems. When Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel takes office in May, he faces city budget shortfalls that could top $1 billion a year.

"By signing a 10-year (contract) with the Teamsters (and with over 30 other unions representing city employees), the current administration and City Council unduly hamstrung not only the current management of city government, but the next six years of management as well, a period that extends well beyond the elected terms of the incoming administration and City Council," Ferguson's report states.

The report goes on to recommend that labor contracts be limited to four years and suggests the city amend the current Teamsters contract to allow changes if the city's financial condition "is significantly different at the time of original bargaining."

Teamsters spokesman Brian Rainville said it was the Daley administration, not the Teamsters, that wanted the 10-year deal. It would not be fair to go back on it now, he said.

"The city agreed to the contract because that's what they wanted," he said. "When the city was in boom times, did we say, 'Hey, let's open this up, you guys are flush'?"

Rainville also disputed Ferguson's contention that the city could eliminate the jobs of 200 truck drivers, contending the city is short on drivers because of its tight budget. Cutting the jobs could actually add to the cost to taxpayers by resulting in more overtime, he said.

In a statement, city Budget Director Eugene Munin said the inspector general's "suffers from a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of collective bargaining" and that the Daley administration has been able to save money by developing flexible scheduling, lower salaries during drivers' first two years on the job, and keeping injured drivers off disability.

The city has 1,400 to 1,800 truck drivers on its payroll, with more on staff during winter to handle snowplowing on city streets and airport runways, according to the report. After two years on the job, they earn nearly $34 an hour, before health insurance and other benefits are added on to bring the yearly cost of each driver to nearly $90,000.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/news/local/ct-met-inspector-general-report-0331-20110330,0,6954693.story

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Like this should really surprise anyone.

Being a union member means learning one simple phrase, "that's not my job."