The agreement calls for a "hybrid" worker position where new Streets and Sanitation workers are trained in all manner of jobs ranging from tree trimming and hand labor to sanitation and graffiti removal, allowing the workers to float from task to task based on need. more ›

Whether Emanuel is using these numbers to hold garbage men accountable for their absenteeism, embarrass them or move to privatize garbage collection is anyone's guess. more ›

There's news out of City Hall today and for the first time in weeks it doesn't involve Mayor Daley's Prophesies of Doom™. Instead, it seems the Mayor and union leaders have worked out an agreement that could greatly reduce the 929 planned layoffs in the city's 2009 budget. In exchange for offering eligible union members cash incentives for voluntary retirement, union leaders have agreed to reduce the cost of overtime for city workers.

"We have 433 eligible people in the Laborers pension fund. We're hoping around 60 will take advantage of it," Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Local 1001, said Monday. more ›