City employee here, salaried, not in a union.

Years ago when I first went to work for the city, the pension situation was not so bad. Then came financial trouble in the early 2000's. I could have tried to find another job but (1) my profession is not one that has a lot of private sector work and (2) I felt I had a calling to serve the people. We were short-staffed, asked to take days without pay, and I was working 60+ hours a week (no overtime b/c I'm salaried) for under $45,000/year, in an extremely stressful job that requires an advanced degree.

Things got better for a while, but then things really started to tank in the economy. We had not just a salary freeze, but effectively a 10% pay cut through furlough days so that the city could afford to pay the contractually-mandated increases to the union members despite the fact that the economy was going down the tubes.

Meanwhile overpaid hacks appointed by Daley were making stupid decisions that made my job harder and let unscrupulous people steal from the city.

Say what you want about Rham Emanuel, compared to Daley he's a goddamn saint and a management super-genius. A lot of the shit that people are complaining about now is stuff he's still in the process of cleaning up. And as for the schools, holy moley the waste, fraud, and abuse that was in CPS was astonishing. The school closures could have been handled better, but there's a lot of waste that was uncovered and eliminated. Schools with empty classrooms stacked with books and equipment for years, that could have been used at other schools that were short. Over 90% of the kids that were moved went to better schools, and the graduation rate is up. Did you know that during the Daley administration the graduation rate for some ethnic groups was about 30% and had been for decades?

And the parking meter thing? Again, I'm sure Emanuel would have loved to get the city out of it, but that would have meant the city would have to repay the money and guess what? Daley had already spent it all.

Personally, I hope folks will give Emanuel another four years, if only because it has taken most of the past four just to uncover and understand some of the extent of the mess.

Someday I'll retire, I'm resigned to getting a bad pension because there's nothing for it, it's not like we will raise property taxes enough to cover the city services we all want, even though it feels like a kick in the teeth. (Property taxes I also pay, btw.) At least I'll know that I did my best to make the world a better place despite what Daley did to my favorite city.

But it would sure be nice if folks would acknowledge that the city employees are getting screwed over even worse than the taxpayers.

Especially those of us who aren't in a union.