Before becoming mayor, Rahm Emanuel long was known nationally for a blunt, often profane manner of getting his points across. In a closed-door meeting Monday morning with city employee union leaders, the task of talking tough instead fell to Emanuel’s $1-a-year deputy mayor, Mark Angelson.
Labor leaders said Angelson, the former C.E.O. of printing giant R.R. Donnelley, began the meeting by declaring to the union bosses: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
The meeting, at a union hall on the South Side, came three days after Emanuel said he would issue layoff notices to as many as 625 city workers and privatize several tasks now performed by public employees, including janitorial work at the city’s airports.
Emanuel carried out his layoff threat after union leaders rejected the mayor’s suggestion that they agree to any of nine work rule changes.
The work rules that Emanuel targeted for elimination–such as paying double the regular wage for overtime work–have padded the pay of some unionized city workers by tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Asked about Angelson’s opening salvo at the meeting, Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez replied, “Look, I’m not interested in the bravado or anything like that, and I’m not saying that’s the sense in which he operated, but however it’s going to be interpreted, I don’t care. My heart and my mind and everything that we have moving forward is going to be keeping these families from facing what is, in this economic time, utter annihilation by getting laid off.”
Angelson and the city’s budget director, Alexandra Holt, declined to discuss the meeting with labor leaders as they left the headquarters of Local 399 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. “It’s a beautiful day,” is all Angelson would say to reporters as he and Holt walked to a car and departed.
One union official said he thought Angelson’s tone at the meeting was less combative than some of Emanuel’s public comments about the city’s budget crisis. At a City Hall news conference Friday, the mayor said his goal was to look out for the interests of taxpayers, “not to protect the city’s payroll.”
“Mayor Emanuel inherited this problem from Mayor Daley, not from the city workers,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31.
The details of the layoff plan are still unknown, Ramirez said.
“We don’t know who the folks are who are going to be receiving the layoff notices,” he said. “Our intent is to not even get down that road.”
Labor leaders have promised to come up with a plan to save the city money. Ramirez said they are still working on their proposals.
While the meeting took place at the Local 399 hall, Emanuel held a news conference across town that was widely seen as another indication that the new sheriff would only show limited patience with city workers in his zeal to streamline city government.
Emanuel announced that the city would hire private companies to collect recyclables from homes in part of the city in an effort to at last expand the “blue cart” program to every home.
In other sections of Chicago, city crews will continue to pick up recycling, just as they collect garbage. After six months, the mayor said, city officials will determine whether it is more cost-effective to do the work in-house or farm it out to private haulers.
The blue carts for suburban-style, curbside recycling have only been distributed to homes in less than half of the city. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley had said it would be too expensive to expand the program citywide. Many aldermen whose constituents lack blue carts say they frequently field complaints about the city recycling program.
“I think this is the right thing to do for the city residents, the city taxpayers and all those employed to make sure we are having a service of recycling that is competitive and is on par with the city’s reputation as the most green city in America,” Emanuel said of expanding the blue cart initiative.
Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Thomas Byrne said no city workers will be laid off because of Emanuel’s expansion of recycling. Emanuel and Byrne said affected employees will be assigned to garbage collection, tree trimming and rodent control.
Byrne said there will be no added cost to the taxpayers for shuffling employees because the affected workers will be moved into vacant positions.
“We’ll just move these people over, and we’ll hold off on the hiring system,” Byrne said.
“Labor leaders said Angelson, the former C.E.O. of printing giant R.R. Donnelley, began the meeting by declaring to the union bosses: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
As I recall, Sam Zell used the same phrase, “There’s a new sheriff in town.”, during his introductory tour with Tribune employees.