Rahm's War Continues

Rahm opens a third front in his war (teachers and public safety being the first two):

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he will no longer tolerate “cannibalizing” rodent control, tree-trimming and other housekeeping services because of a pattern of absenteeism on Mondays and Fridays in the city’s third-largest department.

  One day after releasing attendance records he claims show a pattern of abuse by Streets and Sanitation employees seeking to extend their weekends, Emanuel explained why he shined the light on garbage collection crews and plans to do the same “department by department.”

  “Information, in the past, was held among the few and this was accepted practice. Go ahead. You can be sick on a regular basis on Monday and Friday. You can also play the game, look at the contract, figure out how to game the system,” the mayor said.

And once again, the few are going to ruin it for the many:

• He told them that abuse by a “few bad apples” had forced an unacceptable level of cutbacks in rodent control and tree-trimming services. And he warned the ward superintendents who supervise garbage collection crews that, if they fail to “manage it tightly” and come down hard on chronic abusers, they will be “held accountable.”

  Earlier this week, the city released 13-months of attendance records that, Emanuel claims, show a pattern of abuse. The stats show roughly 6.6 percent of the workforce has unscheduled absences on Mondays, compared to 4.5 percent on Thursdays and 5 percent on Fridays.

  Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Union Local 1001, countered that those same records underscore his argument that Emanuel’s earlier claim of a 33 percent daily absenteeism rate was exaggerated by lumping together employees who call in sick with those on duty disability and restricted duty.

Again, if there are abuses, address them. But what this "scorched earth" policy of Rahm's is going to lead to, no one has any idea.