Leaders of city employee unions responded Tuesday to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s layoff and privatization plans by pointing out many ways that they say city officials could save almost $250 million without sacrificing the jobs of their members.
In a 31-page report delivered to the mayor’s office, consultants for labor groups said Emanuel should reduce the city’s management ranks, reverse the privatization of public work that city employees could perform at lower cost and institute 17 other cost-saving steps.
Before pushing unionized city workers to accept contract concessions or privatizing their positions, city leaders “should make sure you are managing things the way that they should be managed,” said Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.
Emanuel announced recently that he had begun the process of laying off more than 600 city workers and privatizing some city functions, including janitorial work at airports and libraries. That move followed his demand that employee unions agree to changes in workplace rules such as overtime policies for some workers.
Ramirez said Emanuel made a commitment to union leaders that “all the work rule changes and layoffs would go away” if they could identify ways to close a budget gap this year. Asked about Ramirez’s comment, aides to the mayor said Emanuel welcomed labor’s suggestions but had made no such promise. They said the mayor would not suspend plans for layoffs or privatization because the union suggestions would not count toward this year’s budget.
At a news conference earlier Tuesday, Emanuel repeated his assertion that the city should save money through work rule changes, and he said no part of the budget should be immune to changes. Emanuel said he had not yet seen the union report, but he said his new administration already has taken steps to slash management costs. The Chicago News Cooperative reported Sunday that unions would call on the city to increase the low ratio of workers to managers in some city departments.
“Let’s get rid of the unnecessary bureaucracy that has grown up over the years providing high-priced jobs for the politically connected,” the union report states.
Emanuel said his administration already has eliminated or refrained from filling about 300 middle-management positions to save roughly $22 million.
“I appreciate their ideas on management,” the mayor said. “Been there, done that, will continue to do it … It doesn’t mean we avoid doing work rule reforms.”
Although Ramirez and other union officials said they want to work with Emanuel, they plan to also take their case to aldermen. The CFL has scheduled a series of briefings on their report for City Council members on Wednesday.
In the newly released report, the consultants for the unions also argue that the city has given “unfair advantages” to private contractors with political connections.
The labor consultants take aim at Emanuel’s recent announcement that the city will hire private companies to pick up recycling in part of the city. They dispute the administration’s assertions that millions of dollars could be saved – and recycling could at last be expanded across the entire city – by recruiting private haulers to either do all the work or to compel city workers to perform more effectively.
The union report was prepared by a consultant, Public Works of West Chester, Pa., for a coalition of labor groups that represent about 8,000 city workers.
Those unions had signed 10-year labor agreements with then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration in 2007. But in 2009, union officials averted layoffs by agreeing to forego wage increases, take unpaid days off and accept compensatory time instead of overtime for two years.
That pact expired at the end of last month, leaving Emanuel with a budget hole estimated at about $31 million because Daley had wrongly assumed that the unions would extend the concessions deal through the end of 2011.
The budget deficit for 2012 is expected to grow even larger, with estimates reaching $700 million.
Many labor unions did not endorse Emanuel’s bid to replace Daley, instead supporting Gery Chico in the February election.
The union report bemoaned what they said was a growing tendency to blame public workers for the city’s financial problems.
“When did public employees become the enemy?” the report states. “Now, when Chicago faces very difficult decisions because of this unprecedented fiscal crisis, some wish to make public employees the scapegoat and say, ‘If we only got rid of all those overpaid workers, we would be fine.’”