Page 5 - December 2021

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
Our members are too strong
to let the City cross the line
As you know, we’ve had more officers going into no-pay status.
A lot more.
So we will continue to hold the line.
The City changed the policy again, basically making it the same as the CFD to
a degree. It’s still no-pay and stripped, but they took away the direct order as a same-day option. They changed it to getting an appointment at internal affairs two weeks after to get your direct order. So you basically get to go on no-pay for two weeks without discipline at all. And if you decide to come back, you decide to come back. It’s different than CFD because you will eventually be subjected to a direct order.
I don’t know what their thought process was. I guess maybe there was no need to do it the way they were doing it because there wasn’t a big uptick in pushback, so to speak, of people going into no-pay status.
But I think they miscalculated because now there is pushback. They have forced us into this. They want to keep calling it a job action, which it’s not. The first thing the teachers cry about is they’ve got to be made whole for those four or five days they are out. And they always give it to them. Well, that’s pretty much where we’re at.
The City and the Department are confused? They are literally clueless. It’s sad, but it’s true. And it’s either incompetence, it’s willful or it’s just ignorance. Because people are following First Deputy Carter’s lead, and he has no idea what he’s doing. He just knows the mayor wants him to do X, Y and Z. And he is just reinventing the wheel.
Look at what happened with your first RDOs last month. It was supposed to be days off in- definitely cancelled for the rest of the year. Theoretically, you weren’t going to have your first regular day off, no matter what rotation you were in.
Then it went away. They said that that policy was rescinded. Within three hours, they put out a new policy that the day after Thanksgiving, they’re going to be cancelled again. Because they didn’t want to pay the premium on overtime for Thanksgiving Day for forcing people to give up their day off.
It has reached such a level of pettiness and ignorance, and Carter’s the one putting all this crap out. And not a single one of those cowards on the command staff did anything to right this wrong. So they’re either cowards or they’re dumb as a box of rocks, but no one is standing up and saying, “Stop this bullshit.” Quote me on that, because that’s exactly what the members keep saying.
Just like the vaccine mandate, the BS with the RDOs was really designed to just beat up the members so bad that they would just stop fighting. And the Department is shocked that we keep fighting. They’ve gotten pushback from Lodge 7 at a level they have never seen. It used to be ships passing in the night, so to speak, so the Department became bolder and bolder over the years with less pushback from our union and thinking they have the ability to do whatever they want.
Now we’re colliding, and they’re not getting past us this time. I don’t think they kind of know what to do with that, other than just push the accelerator button and see who’s going to win. They’re not going to win a game of chicken with us, though.
We will keep pushing back because we keep hearing those same words from members to keep doing so. “F---, yeah.” That’s what I hear. And specifically from the officers who are still out there in no-pay. Just amazing resolve on their part. And just amazing unity and sticking to- gether. You see it on the group chats and the Zoom meetings we have. Everybody’s supporting everybody. It’s pretty amazing to watch.
Apparently they’re not busy with anything else in Internal Affairs, because they have already
JOHN CATANZARA JR.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2021 5