Page 5 - July2021

CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
JOHN CATANZARA JR.
President
Michael Mette
First Vice President
Daniel D. Gorman
Second Vice President
Fernando Flores
Third Vice President
Rob Noceda
Recording Secretary
Jim Jakstavich
Financial Secretary
Dennis McGuire
Treasurer
Dean Angelo Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
Nenad Markovich Frank Quinn III Daniel Sheehan
Trustees
Harold Brown John Capparelli Pablo Claudio Frank J. DiMaria David DiSanti Mark P. Donahue Patrick Duckhorn Tim Fitzpatrick Dan Goetz Ken Hauser Tom Lonergan Brock Merck Steve Olsen Monica Ortiz Dan Quaid Ron Shogren Daniel G. Trevino
Field Representative
Andrew Cantore
As the City waits, the contract is adding up
As the City continues to drag out contract negotiations, they should consider this: The longer you wait, the higher the rate.
We probably should have T-shirts made with the motto so the City realizes these
are not just words.
Yes, we’d like to get the contract done now and not wait six or nine more months
through arbitration. But with each passing day, the numbers are rolling up. And believe me, we are running and re-running calculations to know exactly how the increase we will get, and the retro pay, will affect every member’s paycheck.
And the City knows, too. It seems like we are going to go to eight years with the contract, so we don’t have to be doing this all over again any time soon. And those last three years are going to cost them a 4 percent increase for each.
As far as the retro pay, the numbers just keep adding up. We retained Paul Vallas as our numbers guy in this negotiation, and he thought it would be $550 million for back pay. It will likely be more than that.
And then he did a forensic crunching of the latest numbers we were throwing at him, and we forecast that the City is looking at more than $625 million. And that’s without giving duty avail- ability back to the recruits at the end of probation, retroactive to July 2017. If you add that on, it’s going to be more than $650 million.
My point is about how the numbers keep going up because the City has tried to wait us out. So the longer they wait, the higher the rate.
You know, the City has only budgeted $100 million for back pay. Where’s the rest coming from? Perhaps it will come from the COVID relief money the City is getting from the federal government. But this much is clear: The City decided to wait. Too long. And now they are having to pay the
price.
The Second Story
Real community outreach – the kind that can make communities safer and really improve working conditions for members – is well underway. In the June issue, we reported stepping up our efforts to work with local churches with the thought that if we can make them better, it will make communities better, which will make working conditions better.
We started off with a bang. Pastor Tony Brown from the South Shore Community Church reached
out for help cleaning up his neighborhood. So we went down there on June 12 with brooms, rakes
and shovels to take out the garbage.
Pastor Tony also asked us if we could bring the barbecue grills, so we did. We were supposed to
give hot dogs and burgers to anybody who would get a COVID vaccine, which the church had set up. They did give some, but we also provided lunch for some church neighbors, including one kid who looked like he had not eaten in days.
He didn’t get a vaccine or help with the cleanup, but Brock Merck, one of our executive board members, told him, “The president of the Chicago FOP just served you a hot dog.” That was the important point here, that we were trying to make a connection with the community in a way that hasn’t been done. Or hasn’t been done enough.
Like many of our members who came to help, Brock was motivated to get it done. We didn’t exactly have all the proper tools. We had more rakes than brooms and we didn’t have a hedge trimmer. So Brock went after the hedges with a hacksaw.
I think we showed the church and the faith-based leaders how much this means to us. Brock has the calluses to prove it. We know this is going to be a tough job, a dirty job, but remember the end game: trying to improve these neighborhoods so our officers are not dealing with the same shit over and over and over again.
We have received more calls from churches who want us to come out. Maybe we can do one a month, kind of a “church of the month” program. Once we have our food trailer up and running, we can take it out and really have a presence.
So keep an eye out for texts and emails to come clean with us. Grab a broom and let’s do this to pursue our vision of making working conditions better for all members.
JOHN CATANZARA JR.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2021 5