Chicago Police Sergeants Reject Rahm’s Offer

The police sergeants voted 876-134 to reject a contract that would have raised pay by 9 percent but increased healthcare pay-ins, decreased overall pension benefits, frozen biannual cost-of-living adjustments and upped the retirement age by three years.

These measures would have added up to a significant reduction in lifetime earnings for police sergeants. And in the bigger picture, the deal would have set a precedent for other public-sector unions, including the much larger Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). Before the vote, FOP president Mike Shields sent a letter to sergeants decrying the deal, calling it ​“unconstitutional” and saying it would ​“drastically lower” the income of the FOP’s 25,000 active members, retirees and widows

Emanuel billed the deal as a ​“road map” for addressing the pension crisis in general, meaning he would take a similar approach with other city workers, including the teachers, park district employees and laborers such as garbage workers.

Robert Bruno, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Labor and Employment Relations, tells In These Times he was surprised that Emanuel made such a statement, as opposed to quietly negotiating deals with each individual union in ​“more the Chicago way.”

​“He revealed his hand,” says Bruno, who also directs the university’s Labor Education Program. ​“By framing it as his road map, he prevented the sergeants from seeing it solely on the merits of what’s good for them. … Because he sold it as the be-all and end-all, the fact he didn’t get it — by such an overwhelming vote — has to be viewed as a strategic setback.”

Playing hardball

The Chicago Sun-Times quoted an unnamed mayoral aide saying Shields and other ​“outside forces” used scare tactics to get the sergeants to vote down the deal.

Bruno, however, believes that while Shields may have been ​“the messenger” in raising concerns about the proposed contract, the overwhelming vote showed that police sergeants decided it was a bad deal for them — and may have been concerned as well about the impact on other public workers.

Emanuel struck back at Shields shortly after the sergeants’ vote, when his office highlighted a serious administrative mistake Shields made last year. As negotiations stretch on over the long-expired police contract, Shields missed a key deadline to send a letter to the city ensuring that any pay raises negotiated would be retroactive. The issue had not been publicized until now and could affect Shields’ chances for re-election as union president.

​“The issue is revenge one day after the mayor got a black eye,” Shields told the Sun-Times. ​“If the city had included the FOP in [Sergeants Union] negotiations that affect its active members and retirees, maybe we would not be in this position.”

Emanuel has long had contentious relationships with the FOP and Shields in particular, including a dispute regarding overtime pay for the NATO summit in May 2012. Police were also upset over Emanuel’s decision to reassign special unit officers to beat patrols rather than hire as many new officers as the union and some aldermen said were needed. 

The latest spat comes as Chicago has made international news for gang violence and murders, logging 506 murders in 2012 and making national headlines for high-profile killings. In January, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed just after she’d performed with her school band during President Obama’s inaugural festivities; this month, 6-month-old Jonylah Watkins was struck by a bullet while her father was changing her diaper in a van.

Bruno tells In These Times that tensions with police unions are ​“standard for big city mayors…but [they] weaken the message the city is doing all it needs to do to address the crime problem and murder rate.”

Solidarity with the police

Labor experts say that Emanuel’s dealings with the police union and the firefighters union — which has been in contentious negotiations with the city for months over issues such as staffing levels and pensions — will be major tests for the mayor. Upon taking office, Emanuel quickly gained a reputation for alienating public unions and ignoring negotiation procedures that were specified by either law, contracts or unwritten Chicago tradition.

Bruno says that one measure of public sector solidarity will be how police interact with other unions during rallies like the upcoming March 27 planned day of action against school closings, where members of the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU and UNITE-HERE plan to engage in civil disobedience. During the September teachers strike, firefighter and police union members and union officials joined the teachers in marches and rallies, with both firefighters union president Tom Ryan and FOP president Shields speaking out in solidarity. Bruno notes reports of on-duty police officers blowing their whistles along with rallying teachers and otherwise subtly showing support.

​“For a glorious seven days the streets were filled with people in red, and to my knowledge there was not a single arrest or complaint about police,” said Bruno, calling the relationships with officers during the strike ​“convivial.”

Complicated relationships

Other unions have largely stayed mum on the police contract issues. In response to an interview request from Working In These Times, Chicago Federation of Labor spokeperson Nick Kaleba declined to comment on the Police Sergeants Union vote, noting that the union is not a federation member. ​“The other unions continue to hold discussions with the city and are committed to protecting the pensions of their members who have made every contribution required of them,” Kaleba told In These Times.

Many public workers I’ve spoken with feel the police sergeants and police officers unions have it good compared to other rank-and-file public workers, even with recent belt-tightening. The four-year proposed contract rejected by the sergeants still set retirement at the relatively low age of 53 and included a 9 percent pay increase — though the raise would be dwarfed by the decreases in pension benefits, notes Bruno.

A public union employee who asked his name not be used told In These Times, ​“It’s good when the better paid among public workers reject austerity measures. It sets an example for the workers in middle and lower wage positions.”

However many activist public union members don’t have a great deal of sympathy for the Chicago police force as a whole, especially given the police role during protests that include large union contingents, such as the NATO summit actions. Frequently at protests or sit-ins – or example a January 2012 rally at City Hall over ordinances that imposed stricter limits on protests in advance of the NATO summit – crowd chants of ​“join us,” appealing to the police as fellow workers and union members, are met with stony silence.

​“This is the town of Haymarket,” noted Bruno, referring to the historic bitterness between police and organized labor.

Pension problem

There is no denying that Chicago and the state of Illinois have a serious pension crisis. When Emanuel took office, Chicago had $26.8 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, with the Policemen’s Annuity & Benefit Fund accounting for $7 billion, the Firemen’s Annuity & Benefit Fund for $3.1 billion and the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund for $7.1 billion. Laborers, park district workers and other city employees accounted for smaller amounts.

Bruno notes that the crisis may not be as bad as it sounds, since the aforementioned liabilities would only be due in full if all workers suddenly retired at once, and the recovering stock market is slowly restoring the pension funds. Bruno calls for a balanced solution to the crisis: increased revenue – likely in the form of taxes – along with some concessions such as benefits cuts or increased employee contributions. Emanuel and civic leaders have also proposed what they describe as a ​“balanced” solution: increasing employee contributions, raising the retirement age, reducing cost-of-living raises and other measures — but no tax increases.

Pension reform has been the subject of clashes between Emanuel and unions since early in his tenure. He initially infuriated labor by going directly to state legislators to demand pension reforms, without negotiating with unions. Union leaders accused him of pitting union members against other taxpayers by threatening a 150 percent increase in property taxes as the only alternative to the reforms he sought. Now pension reforms will be worked out with different unions including in contract negotiations; meanwhile, Emanuel also plans to ask state legislators for funding to help fill the pension gap.

In a study released March 12, Bruno and co-author Frank Manzo calculated that, contrary to some stereotypes, Illinois public workers are not ​“overpaid” in salaries or pensions compared to workers in the private sector and in other states. Bruno and Manzo also found that cutting pensions — and thus, public workers’ buying power and tax contributions — would have a significant harmful effect on the economy in general.

​“Everyone comes into office saying they won’t raise taxes,” Bruno tells In These Times. ​“But if you want to be a 21^st century global city you need a vibrant public sector. Pensions are part of that.”