Page 18 - December 2021

Department ignores contract and continues to cancel RDOs
As we end 2021 and look forward to the start of a new year, it should come as no surprise that the Department continues to ignore the contract and regularly cancels police officers’ RDOs. Despite entering into a monumental memorandum of agreement (“MOU”) with the Lodge in July
2021, the Department continues to ignore
the spirit of the MOU and violates the
parties’ collective bargaining agreement
(“contract”).
Let’s quickly review what has been happening over
the past few years in terms of the City’s actions which dis-
rupt officers’ daily lives. In 2020, the Police Department rou- tinely and regularly began cancelling police officers’ days off (in addition, the Department required them to work 12-hour days for as long as 16 days without a day off). The Lodge im- mediately raised concerns that the additional stress created by daily mandatory overtime without regular days off leads to health and safety concerns for the officers and the public. The Department knew that officers were placed at risk but mandat- ed an extraordinary amount of overtime nonetheless — a prac- tice which continues to this day. Despite the superintendent’s recognition of the stress which limited days off puts on officers, the Department continued to require officers to do so.
Ask any officer, and he or she will explain that regularly scheduled days off are needed to decompress and get some much-needed rest. The Department cannot keep implement- ing abnormally dangerous working conditions by requiring po-
lice officers to work many days in a row without ample time to rest. The Department assigns RDOs to each and every officer. Contractually, once set, the Department cannot change them during a 28-day period without repercus-
sions.
In May 2021, the City issued an order involving the
2021 Memorial Day Deployment Plan. The Department canceled nearly all RDOs over a two-week period (with some officers working 16 days straight.) The City is keenly aware that summer holidays fall at the same time each year (i.e., Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day). Yet the City cancelled RDOs for some police officers only days before the scheduled holiday, when most officers already had made commitments for their RDOs, which the City establishes every
28 days.
The Lodge immediately filed a class action grievance chal-
lenging the City’s decision and sought expedited arbitration. The parties scheduled a hearing to begin in late July 2021. (As an aside, after receiving the grievance, the City went ahead and cancelled RDOs over the Father’s Day weekend and the
PAT FIORETTO
18 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2021