Shakman lawsuit expands
Another eight Chicago employees joined the lawsuit against the city of Chicago claiming that there was no way to get a promotion without the approval of the Mayor Richard Daley’s brother John. And, how did you get John’s approval? Well, by doing political work for the Daley Administration.
The eight employees were added to the long-running Shakman lawsuit as Mayor Daley’s corporation counsel stuck to her guns about getting out from under the federal decree. Mara Georges told aldermen Tuesday she wants to dramatically expand the number of Shakman-exempt employees — from 1,200 to 2,850.
Attorney Michael Shakman, who brought the initial lawsuit against city patronage hiring in 1969, hopes that adding city workers directly injured by the alleged patronage system will defeat Georges’ claims that Shakman has no “standing” to sue the city.
The employees described being passed over for promotions and lucrative overtime by less qualified, less experienced employees with clout from their associations with: John Daley’s 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization; Ald. Edward Burke’s 14th Ward organization and the Daley-created Hispanic Democratic Organization run by the mayor’s former political enforcer Victor Reyes.
Michael Sullivan, a 16-year veteran of Streets and Sanitation, said John Daley, the mayor’s former patronage chief Robert Sorich and Streets and San’s indicted former director of staff services Patrick Slattery would call in to request light duty for 11th Warders, while no-clout guys like Sullivan got stuck with harsher assignments.
An 11th Warder who didn’t like his assignment told a supervisor, “I don’t work for you. I work for John Daley,” according to the complaint.
Like federal indictments in the hiring scandal that prompted U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen to appoint a monitor to oversee city hiring, the amended complaint alleges that Mayor Daley and other city officials have engaged in a “massive conspiracy to defraud” the court, the plaintiffs and the public.
It’s going to take a long while for this to all play out, but it makes for pretty good political theater, especially if you’d like to see the Daley political machine in Chicago get their just desserts for years of corruption.
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