Posted on 10/19/2006 12:50:49 PM PDT by Teflonic
The most dangerous job in America?
Underground coal miner? Foundry worker?
City workers with political clout claim to be injured at a rate that far exceeds any occupation tracked by the U.S. Department of Labor, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times that raises questions about whether all those city workers really were injured, and whether the city adequately investigates workplace accidents.
Could so many patronage workers really be getting hurt on the job? Greg Krohm doesn't think so. "This is buffoonery," said Krohm, executive director of the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions, in Madison, Wis.
"It's a statistically improbable proportion," said Krohm, a former administrator of Wisconsin's workers compensation program.
One of every five Chicago patronage workers -- most often cement mixers, truck drivers and other laborers -- has filed at least one work-related injury claim seeking compensation from the city during the last two decades. Half of them filed at least two claims. A few filed a dozen claims or more.
That's what the Sun-Times found by comparing two computer databases: the formerly secret "clout list" of 5,800 people kept by Mayor Daley's patronage director and thousands of workers compensation claims filed by city employees since Daley took office in 1989.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
In related news:
The roads in Chicago are still a pothole riddled mess.
What else is new-it's Chicago. And the fine citizens of Cook county are on their way to electing the reluctant junior aka Teddy Boy Stroger so that he can raise our taxes to keep the coffers filled for the greedy Democrats. The Democrats know they can get away with bilking taxpayers because the daughter of a very powerful Dem politician aka Lisa Madigan, the attorney general will look the other way.
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