City officials released data Monday showing that black and Hispanic workers bore the brunt of the layoffs that came in recent months as part of Mayor Richard Daley`s ”bad news budget.”
The report showed that minorities make up 44 percent of the city work force, but represented 78 percent of the 773 workers fired in November and December.
White workers, on the other hand, constitute 56 percent of the total work force but represented only 22 percent of those fired.
The disclosure prompted immediate charges from aldermen and union officials that racial politics and favoritism played a part in who was fired and who was not.
And critics called the city`s two-page handout of data on the firings
”woefully inadequate.”
”If I was the mayor of Chicago and this report came across my desk, I would say, `This is a good first draft, now go out and get me some details so I can find out what is going on inside my government,` ” said Ald. John Steele (6th).
Hardest hit by the layoffs were African-Americans, who make up 34 percent of the City Hall work force but 61 percent of those fired, according to city figures.
”I`m surprised and, in fact, disappointed that such a large number of the people laid off were minority workers, especially since we have made such a concerted effort to hire minorities,” said Glenn Carr, commissioner of the Personnel Department.
Carr and other administration officials contended the firings were dictated strictly by seniority and union contracts. They said minority workers bore the brunt of the layoffs because they were the most recently hired.
But union officials and aldermen disputed that.
”There`s certainly no data to show that they followed the seniority provisions, and we hear from laid-off workers that they didn`t,” said Henry Bayer, deputy director of Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union that represents more than half of laid-off city workers.
AFSCME has filed 450 grievances relating to the firings. ”We want more details, which we still haven`t received,” Bayer said.
The two-page handout released by city officials showed broad racial characteristics of the city work force, but no specific information about the laid-off workers has been released, such as their names, job titles, and dates hired and fired.
That data has been requested by union leaders, civil rights attorneys and aldermen who contend racial politics and favoritism played a part in the firing decisions.
”That`s absolutely not so,” said Carr, who said the city`s Freedom of Information Officer Martin Stack was deciding whether to release all the data. Stack said a decision had not been made.
Daley officials tried to blunt the impact of the firing data, saying 61 percent of all employees hired since Daley became mayor in April 1989, have been minorities.
But their records show the benefits have been enjoyed by minorities other than blacks.
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Since Daley became mayor, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans have increased their representation on the work force, while whites and blacks have dropped, records show. Whites dropped the most.
According to the city`s handout, since Daley became mayor, the number of Hispanics on the work force increased by 497, or 18 percent, to 3,248 from 2,751. The number of Asians, Native Americans and other non-black minorities increased by 243, or 33 percent, to 979 from 736.
At the same time, the number of whites on the city work force dropped by 977, or 4 percent, to 22,535 from 23,512, records show. And the number of blacks on the work force decreased by 499, or 3.5 percent, to 13,883 from 14,382.
”Out of the minority groups, the only one that decreased was African-Americans,” said Steele, who is black. ”When Daley says his minority work force is better than it has been in the past, he means among Hispanics, Asians, American Indians and others, not African-Americans.”
African-American aldermen also said they suspected many of the new minority hires were seasonal as opposed to full time, and questioned whether minority workers were paid as much as whites.
In addition to the 773 laid-off workers, 360 workers have left the work force through normal attrition since November, Carr said.
Carr said the Police Department is interviewing now to hire about 400 civilians to the police force. He said the city was ”trying to work out details” so that laid-off employees could have first shot at the jobs.
Bayer also said AFSCME and city officials have been negotiating to rehire some of the laid-off employees. But he said the city`s proposal offered ”very limited opportunities for a minuscule number of people to return to work.”
He called the offer ”woefully inadequate.”