Chicago's Streets & Sanitation slackers unlikely to be fired

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Though the city's inspector general figures Chicago is wasting millions of dollars a year on garbage-collection crews "paid to do nothing" for 25 percent of their time on the job, no one has been disciplined for slacking off.

And they might never be held accountable.

City Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said Friday it would be tough to justify the firings promised by Mayor Daley and city Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Michael Picardi in the wake of Inspector General David Hoffman's report last month, let alone suspensions.

"Those people would come in to court and say, 'Yeah, this was a bad morning. I got in a fight with my wife. I was dealing with a lot of issues. My dog died,' " said Georges, the city's top lawyer. "You could see them making an explanation for why, on that particular day for those two hours, they were doing something they weren't supposed to do. It becomes a tough case to sustain."

Amazing,Mayor Daley's administration claims they can't do anything.For a look at the kind of people who've been involved in Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department.The average garbage worker makes 63K a year.Not bad when you boss doesn't care if you work a full time job.