Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says he’s not worried unionized city truck drivers will strike.
A strike could affect 2,000 of the city’s truck drivers who do snow removal, garbage collection and airport operations. Mayor Daley says union workers have good public jobs and won’t vote to strike.
DALEY: You get a great salary. You get a great pension. You get a great healthcare. You get sick days. You get happy days, every day you want, you get off. These are great jobs and so when the private sector is suffering... I’m sorry, these are tremendous jobs.
Daley has a plan to move snow plow drivers for O’Hare and Midway Airports from an 8-hour work day to just two hours on days without snow. The union says Daley’s cutting hours as punishment for the union rejecting his request to take furlough days. A Teamster leader says workers plan to file several unfair labor practice charges with the labor board. He says the union could vote to authorize a strike in the next couple of weeks.