Mother's Day Sickout: 32% of Cook County Jail guards did not show up for work Sunday
Photo: darius norvilas / Flickr
CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) More than 200 Cook County Jail officers called off work Sunday — which also happens to be Mother’s Day.
About 32 percent of the officers assigned to work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. did not go to work, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s office.
“The extraordinary number of call offs puts additional pressure on the men and women of the Sheriff’s office who come to work as scheduled,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
Of the 200 officers to call in, 86 said they were sick, the sheriff’s department said, and another 120 cited the Family Medical Leave Act, a federal law that protects an employee’s personal or family illness, family military leave and pregnancy, among other issues.
The jail’s visitation schedule was not affected, but the jail was placed on lockdown with only “essential movement” taking place, including medical and mental health, according to the sheriff’s department.
On last year’s Mother’s Day, 420 officers called in sick. About a month later, more than 520 officers called in sick on Father’s Day and the following Monday.
In May 2015, almost 640 correctional officers called in sick for shifts the same day that boxers Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao faced off.