On Wednesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel threw down the gauntlet to the city's labor unions when he offered up an ultimatum: Accept his work-rule changes or face some 625 layoffs. Two days later, the mayor has indicated that negotiations with the unions are ongoing but, for the time being, those 625 city employees's jobs are safe with a weighty caveat -- Emanuel is calling for $11 million worth of concessions by the year's end in order to keep it that way.
In lieu of the threatened layoffs and furlough days alike, Emanuel announced $20 million in cost-saving measures Friday, as WBEZ reported. In addition to not filling approximately 200 vacant positions, effectively creating a partial hiring freeze, he said seven city-run health centers will now be overseen by a federal program.
The cuts proposed by Emanuel were necessary due to the expiration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley's furlough day agreement at midnight on Thursday. Without the furloughs, which Emanuel has criticized, in place, a $31 million budget gap remains.
But again, Emanuel added in his Friday press conference, he will "need [the unions] to be partners" going forward to avoid handing out new a new round of pink slips to city employees, according to WBEZ.
To supply the missing budget puzzle piece, the mayor has asked labor leaders to present their own ideas for a solution to the remaining $11 million gap.
Jorge Ramirez, Chicago Federation of Labor president, and Tom Villanova, Chicago and Cook County Building Trades Council on the city budget president, issued a joint statement Friday which spoke to their "spirit of cooperation" in the ongoing budget negotiations.
"[T]he unions representing workers at the City of Chicago are working diligently to develop cost saving ideas on behalf of their members, city residents and taxpayers," the statement read. "We believe there are a number of ways city government can operate more effectively and efficiently. Once again, the men and women of organized labor are demonstrating a willingness and desire to be a part of the solution."
While unions get to work on their cost-saving proposals, due sometime within the coming weeks to the city, some labor experts remain skeptical whether the sort of work-rule changes that would be acceptable to the city's labor representatives would be broad enough to fill the shortfall left in the furlough days' wake. The furlough agreement, according to the Chicago News Cooperative, was saving the city an estimated $60 million annually.
"This tends to be accounting by magic. Can you really equate these savings to dollars?" Robert Bruno, professor of labor employment relations at the University of Illinois, Chicago, told HuffPost Chicago Thursday. "It's all very questionable."