Page 6 - January 2021

Lodge 7 leaders, including President John Catanzara and First Vice President Mike Mette, prepare meals for members working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, including delivering hot food at the 7th District.
CATANZARA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
understand the dynamic of not meeting the nemesis face to face. The pitch should come from me.
Our goal is to not say “no” to anybody who wants to have a le- gitimate debate about the facts. Many times, these legislators are running with talking points they think their constituents want to hear, when they really have no idea what they are talking about.
It’s like the whole discussion about taking away our qualified immunity. Judges, prosecutors and politicians have it, so if we’re going to have a discussion about qualified immunity it needs to be wholesale, not just specific to the police.
They don’t understand what taking it away would do. It would turn the police force into English Bobbies. Worse than that, it could lead to a mass exodus of officers. And they don’t want that because it would make the impossible task of recruiting police of- ficers even more daunting. Who would take the job knowing there is no qualified immunity? But legislators are hellbent on throwing red meat to their constituents without thinking of the long-term effects of any of it.
So if they make licensing police officers one of the biggest is- sues of the next legislative session, that should scare the crap out of every union in the state. If they attack our discipline protection, everybody will be on the target list, even the teachers’ union.
We see the writing on the wall. The FOP has purposely been ex- cluded from these conversations with the governor, the attorney general and the Black Caucus. But there are people standing up for us, like Senator Robert Martwick. That’s what we expect the people we endorse to do for us. Kudos to him for doing what is expected.
Counting down the ‘night-mayor’
The state of our union in Chicago motivates us to be relent- lessly critical of the mayor. Every day, she continues to show her ineptness, highlighted by her micromanaging that shows how far out of her element she is. That need to control everything is not putting people in places they need to be to succeed, but just to be an echo chamber for her, to tell her that her ideas are right about everything. But she has no idea what she’s talking about and meanwhile, the city is crashing and burning before our eyes.
It’s like the famous line from “A Knight’s Tale:” “You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting.”
When you are a leader, the first thing you must admit is that you don’t know everything, or you lose all your credibility. The simplest example is that she has no idea how to fill the budget holes for 2021. She has no idea where it’s going to come from.
I do not know the City budget numbers to the degree that it would be extremely useful, but that’s why we brought in Paul Val- las, the former City budget director, to help with the contract. He knows how the numbers get shuffled around and where the mon- ey is hidden.
Leaders need to bring people in who know how to do the job and let them do the job. But she is not. Her nightmare is far from over. Like the countdown to retirement for many members, we have started the clock on how many days until she is out of office.
State of the contract
I know this is what matters most to members, but contract ne- gotiations continue to put us in a state of discontent or, at the very least, confusion. We have been negotiating in good faith, and we have gone back and forth on what makes sense regarding every- thing the City has put out.
But it’s disgusting what they are doing, and I have told them as much. It’s like the whole situation regarding training and COVID. The City doesn’t give a damn about making it mandatory for members to attend training with no regard for whether this ex- poses them to COVID, which it has. That’s how we lost one of our beloved dispatchers in December.
Why can’t this be done virtually? The City’s attorney, with whom we are negotiating the contract, had COVID and now wants to do all negotiations by Zoom. That’s the hypocrisy we are fighting through this whole contract negotiation. If they are forcing our members to go to training, why can’t they meet with us in person?
So to finally settle the contract, I can’t see us not winding up in arbitration on some of the issues because the City is not going to budge on some issues, and we’re not going to budge with what they are trying to attach to those issues. It’s a small list, but they are significant issues. If we don’t have any movement soon, we will go back to arbitration.
Get into the fight
When you look at all of the above, our main focus for 2021 has to be member involvement. We need to encourage as many mem- bers as possible to stand up for themselves. We need more mem- bership meetings like when we first took over, and the hall was packed beyond capacity.
As we get back to meeting in person sometime soon, we need to pack the place again. Even if it’s a cold night in February or March, we will put heaters outside to accommodate more members so they can see that this Lodge is willing to fight on every level.
That’s what I want to show by fighting the Department’s at- tempt to fire me. If they want to get rid of me so bad, I told them I will resign from the Department tomorrow if they give us our raise. But I don’t think they will call my bluff because they would have to admit defeat, and they don’t want us to have a win.
So we will fight and throw everything at them, including the new kitchen sink. We have some of the greatest minds to help us fight, and that elevated level of protection is more important than ever.
So I challenge all members to join me in giving a voice to the fight. The more members who do will make the state of our union stronger than it has ever been.
6 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JANUARY 2021