They were two events that shook the Illinois business community to the core: the disastrous flood under the Loop and the angry end of the Caterpillar strike.
Valuable lessons can be learned from both.
Trouble is, many of us will learn the wrong ones.
In the case of the flood, the race to plug the breached tunnel under the Chicago River will soon turn into a legal witch hunt over who`s to blame for the mega-mess. Fault-finding and loss-shifting is one of the worst features of American business culture. Some put the national cost of our jaded liability system at $500 billion a year. In this case, enormous amounts of time and money will be spent assigning blame for what amounted to a freak accident that had many causes. What a waste.
In the case of the Caterpillar strike, employers everywhere are apt to take a lesson from the way our state`s largest industrial employer bludgeoned the United Auto Workers. They`re apt to conclude that getting tough is the best way to treat employees. What a shame.
The non-lesson of the flood goes something like this: Somebody is always to blame when anything goes wrong.
The flood`s aftermath will prove once again that our tort liability system is as unfair as it is inefficient. Building tenants will sue building owners. Building owners will sue the city. The city probably will sue its contractors, and the contractors probably will countersue. In short, the cleanup will quickly become a full-employment program for lawyers. Don`t be surprised if portions of the mess-a muck-filled basement here, a waterlogged electrical vault there-go unremedied for months, even years, while claimants and their insurance companies pursue the liability question in the courts.
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Maybe the company that sank the pilings that may (or may not) have caused the tunnel to crack should have been more careful. Maybe the city should have been more explicit about where the tunnel was located; no doubt it should have acted faster once the leak began. We know some officials learned months ago that a leak existed and that they were even moving-too slowly, as it turned out-to patch it.
But hindsight is 20/20, and to my mind there was something unseemly about the way Mayor Richard M. Daley quickly demanded the resignation of acting commissioner John N. LaPlante. I`m biased because I used to cover public works and often interviewed LaPlante about city projects. He came across as a capable professional engineer, a straight-shooter and a gentleman. In other words, the kind of guy you`d expect to take the fall for the pols at City Hall.
But is it reasonable to expect that LaPlante, sitting atop a bureaucracy that manages thousands of miles of streets, sewers and bridges, should have fast-tracked repairs on one small leak in one obscure tunnel? It`s easy now to say ”yes,” but not very realistic.
Stand back a bit and you realize that Chicago`s downtown freight tunnels were an accident waiting to happen. Designed as an underground mini-railroad for hauling coal to the business district, the long-dormant network had been rediscovered as a cost-effective conduit for downtown cable systems. Before last Monday`s flood, nobody in power warned that the tunnels were potentially dangerous, nor did we expert second-guessers in the press. We may turn out to be lucky, I think, that water filled those tunnels and not toxic smoke from a chemical fire or nerve gas released by a terrorist.
After they are drained, the freight tunnels will need to be filled in or refitted with watertight gaskets and doors. Unfortunately, we may not have the money to do either after we pay the lawyers.
Then there`s the non-lesson of the Caterpillar strike: Good labor relations is telling workers ”My way or the highway.”
That was the message Caterpillar Chairman Donald V. Fites used to break the strike. And make no mistake, the union took a whipping last week when it ordered its people back to work on Caterpillar`s terms.
Both sides in the five-month dispute had legitimate points. Industrial unions are supposed to insist on wages sufficient to give their members a piece of the middle-class dream. And companies like Caterpillar must have pay scales and work rules that will keep them competitive in world markets. Neither side wins unless Caterpillar turns a profit.
But did Don Fites do the right thing by threatening to hire permanent replacements? It was a terrific short-term move. How could it miss, with 20 million Americans out of work and a labor-baiter in the White House whose predecessor legitimized the tactic by firing thousands of striking air traffic controllers?
But Caterpillar may soon learn that beating its workers into submission isn`t the way to forge a productive work force. That kind of hardball is more likely to convert a proud group of craftsmen into a bunch of sullen clock-watchers, indifferent to the quality of what they produce.
It was a bad week, last week. Maybe Caterpillar will set it right in the weeks ahead by being more humane in the renewed contract negotiations. And maybe our civic and business leaders will focus on fixing the Loop, not the blame.
Maybe, but don`t bet on it.