Page 18 - December 2017

Administrative law judge finds City violated the law
Just in time for the holidays. On Nov. 8, 2017, an administrative law judge (ALJ) issued her recommended decision and order (RDO)
in a significant ruling that will positively
affect our ongoing negotiations with the
City over a new contract. In short, the ALJ
found that the City violated the state labor
law when it “unilaterally implemented the
CR Matrix because the CR Matrix is a mandatory
subject of bargaining and the Union did not waive the right to bargain over it.” We could not have said it any better ourselves! It’s hard to believe that almost a year has passed since the Lodge first challenged the City’s unlawful actions. On Jan. 1, 2017, the Management Labor and Affairs Section (MLAS) sent the Lodge an email stating the Department’s intentions to im- plement, unilaterally, its “Complaint Register Matrix Guide- lines,” which set forth new parameters for discipline to be imposed for several general categories of misconduct. These new guidelines directly affected how the City disciplined all
bargaining unit employees and therefore are a term and con- dition of employment that could not be unilaterally im-
plementedbytheDepartment. TheLodgehadconsistentlyadvisedtheCitythatim-
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plementationofanysuchguidelineswasamandatory subject of bargaining that needed to be addressed in the course of negotiations for the successor to the cur- rent collective bargaining agreement. Indeed, the Lodge had sent several written objections and requested to bargain once the current contract expired — all to no avail. Ultimately,
the ALJ agreed with the Lodge.
In a 43-page written decision, all of the City’s arguments
failed, oftentimes belied by the admissions of the City’s own witnesses. Most telling is the City’s concession that the matrix establishes a new penalty range for each category of rule viola- tions. As noted by the ALJ, “by design, the penalty ranges...do not reflect the penalties that the [City] historically applied for the individual rules violations.” The City agreed that investi- gators now must choose “a recommended penalty from with-
18 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2017