Page 5 - November 2021
P. 5

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
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
   It’s our right, so your vaccine mandate has no shot
Our aggravation and frustration over the vaccination mandate grow with every Chicago Police Officer who is stripped and put into no-pay status. We will stand up to this tyranny and stand together for as long as it takes to make the City un- derstand that this is not about objecting to the vaccination. It is about protecting our rights. And that is why many of your Lodge 7 field representatives, including me, are right there with you, stripped and in no-pay status.
There is a lot to say about this matter, so thanks for hearing me out here.
To begin with, F the gag order. You never thought it was going to keep us from speaking up and telling it like it is. The Lodge, along with the other supervisors’ unions, has been very clear with the City from the get-go that the vaccination pol- icy was not similar to other policies for other departments. For one, it had some
very glaring oversights and omissions that we had issues with. But the City really didn’t give a damn. They told us, pretty much take it or leave it, and some of those spineless, thoughtless members of the City Council continue to support her.
As you can see by the TRO Judge Mitchell granted to prevent the City from terminating any officers before Dec. 31 for failure to comply, we are totally in our rights to demand that this pol- icy be negotiated. We will move forward on this matter with the goal of getting an arbitrator to rule on it as soon as possible.
The City forced this position because of its refusal to collectively bargain. The only thing they did offer was going back to a testing option. But that testing option has a sunset clause for Dec. 31. We could have avoided the situation that we are in right now if the mayor was not such a dictator. The public outcry is that this is all about stopping the spread, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. The mandate does nothing major to stop the spread of the virus. At least if you believe the way the results are supposed to be gathered, because you can still get the virus, you can still pass the virus and you can still die from the virus, even with a vaccine.
The vaccine should always have been the secondary focus. You can literally encourage com- pliance, financially or otherwise, with trying to get people vaccinated voluntarily. The simplest way and solution would be to accept natural immunity.
Our point was that if this is about stopping the spread, then every member should be tested – vaccinated or not – every day going into a police station or facility. Before reporting to work, get a rapid test. If you are positive, go home and quarantine. If they’re good, go to work, do your duty and go home. You will know who is contagious every single day.
What better way to make the public safer and literally stop the spread? Nobody can even jus- tify that we’re actually spreading this virus. It’s an assumption, and it’s a scare tactic just to try and make us say, OK, we’ll comply. Again, there is no data to say that our police force is spread- ing this virus to the public. The answer is right there, and we are giving them more testing than they even asked for. But the City still said no.
I want to thank all our field reps for literally working around the clock at 35th Street to coun- sel and guide members as they exercise their rights to refuse to comply with this mandate. The refusal to cooperate is about more than just vaccines. It reflects officers’ anger with the liberal City government.
They are supposed to bargain a policy like this, but their attempts at collective bargaining were insulting. Their first proposal didn’t have testing. They added testing, but they made it effective only through the end of the year. Then, it’s be vaccinated or you’re fired, basically. Then, just to really fire a shot across the bow when the other unions – other than police and fire – started caving in, they said, any city employee who gets a vaccine will get an extra person- al day. Except for sworn law enforcement officers, which means Lodge 7 members, as well as the sergeants, lieutenants and captains. That was a big middle finger to all of us because we’re fighting her, and she’s like, “How dare you fight me.”
Not that it would have mattered, but just as a simple point, they didn’t even offer the personal days to us because we’re not complying as quickly as they wanted. Then, as their best offer, they
   JOHN CATANZARA JR.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6
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