Here Come the Layoffs

We'd hope that these 451 laid off people would be picketing at and around City Hall the very next day, pointing out how Shortshanks claimed "labor peace" with 10 year contracts back in 2007:

• As a Wednesday deadline loomed for labor leaders to strike deals on cost-cutting measures, only two unions were still holding out late Tuesday. City Hall was poised to lay off 431 workers represented by the holdout Local 726 of the Teamsters union and Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
  
  Daley declined to say Tuesday what city services would suffer if the layoffs take place. But his administration later said the 141 Teamsters workers drive trucks in eight city departments, primarily Streets and Sanitation, Water Management and Aviation. Of the 290 ASFCME workers on the chopping block, 120 work in city libraries stocking books, and the rest work in lower-level administrative jobs across 28 departments, according to City Hall.

We talked to a few Crossing Guards the other day. It seems they've finally got a contract offer - no retro, no more holidays, but they're being offered a step raise in lieu of the cuts. No one has seen this contract in writing, but they're voting this weekend. Shortshanks claims that if the economy improves, they might be able to have back some perks - but does anyone think that Daley is going to offer any of the unions anything back that they've given away without surrendering something else? All Daley is doing is stealing back items to negotiate with at a later date and any Union that gave back a nickel, a dime, a furlough day, a holiday should be voted out of office at the next opportunity.