Police and Firefighters Unions Join List of Public Employees Targeted by Chicago Mayor Emanuel

The union is disputing how overtime was calculated, including for officers who worked six or seven days within a week. A city spokesperson has said officers will get all the overtime due them, with checks arriving in mid-June.

On the FOP’s website, union president Mike Shields wrote, ​“We protected the mayor’s residence from anarchists. You’d think he could at least pay us what we are owed.”

On May 30, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, ​“The Chicago Police Department made Mayor Emanuel shine throughout the nation and the world. Yet he won’t stand up for us and say, ​‘You guys had my back, I’m going to have yours.’”

Meanwhile the Chicago Firefighters Union contract is up June 30, and Emanuel has indicated cuts are in store for the next one as part of a move to reform the department. Emanuel’s proposal reportedly calls for eliminating duty availability pay, bonuses for firefighters with cross-training as paramedics, and clothing allowances; and reducing the number of people per engine from 10 to 9. Union president Tom Ryan called the proposals ​“horrendous” and said Emanuel is using the word ​“reform” as a euphemism for ​“cuts.”

City Inspector General Joe Ferguson has said the city could save more than $50 million by eliminating extra pay for police and firefighters for being on call 24 hours a day, and an additional $50 million by reducing the required number of workers staffing a piece of fire equipment from five to four, in order to allow the staff cuts per engine. Altering the minimum staffing limit is what led to a firefighter strike in 1980, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Emanuel is also proposing significant changes to police and firefighter pension plans, including increasing employee contributions and raising the retirement age by five years.

Firefighters have long been known for having extreme political clout and enjoying generous contracts and pension plans, even as the department was accused of racism and irresponsibility, with reports of parties involving prostitutes while firemen were on the clock during former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s tenure. Last year an investigation by the Chicago News Cooperative found that the number of firefighters on the public payroll is proportionally the highest of any major city and is out of step with the steadily shrinking number of fires in Chicago. 

Many Chicagoans surely agree reforms of police and fire contracts and closer scrutiny of these departments are needed and timely, especially given the cost to taxpayers and widespread complaints about many police officers’ behavior. But others see Emanuel’s moves as a general signal of disrespect to unions and the collective bargaining process. Chicago’s local ABC affiliate The police demands for NATO overtime pay come as many residents are still vehemently questioning the priorities behind spending so much on the summit while services are being slashed and crime is epidemic in poor neighborhoods — with 10 people killed and more than 40 shot over Memorial Day weekend alone. 

In a scathing column in the June 1 Southwest News Herald, Ray Hanania attacked Emanuel’s focus on the NATO summit and what it represents at the expense of regular people:

​“He did a masterful job of taking the NATO conference, which never should have been brought to Chicago, and making it look like Chicago has somehow become a better place because didn’t replicate the ​‘police riot’ that took place in 1968. Chicago is still the city that doesn’t work, its narrow shoulders getting smaller and holding up fewer and fewer.”