Mayor Daley is inviting restaurants and groceries to cut sanitary corners and putting public health at risk by slashing Health Department spending and reducing Chicago's army of food sanitarians by 23 percent, a union leader is charging.
Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, said the current staff of 62 food sanitarians is inadequate to respond to thousands of complaints and make annual inspections at 15,000 food establishments.
Daley's proposed 2009 budget would reduce the Food Sanitation Section from 62 employees to 45. Fourteen of the jobs eliminated belong to sanitarians.
"When people go in to a restaurant or grocery store, they want to feel comfortable the food they eat or buy is not going to make them sick," said Bayer, whose union represents Health Department workers.