Page 5 - FOP June 2019 Magazine

CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
KEVIN GRAHAM
President
PATRICK J. MURRAY
First Vice President
Martin Preib
Second Vice President
Jay R. Ryan
Third Vice President
Greg Bella
Recording Secretary
Michael P. Garza
Financial Secretary
John Capparelli
Treasurer
Dean C. Angelo, Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
William Burns James Jakstavich Michael Mette
Trustees
Harold Brown Andrew Cantore Mark Donahue William Dougherty Pat Duckhorn Sergio Escobedo Fernando Flores Joseph Gentile Danny Gorman Ken Hauser Rick King Frank Quinn Carlos Salazar Ron Shogren Mark Tamlo Daniel Trevino Michael Underwood
Field Representatives
Robert Bartlett Rich Aguilar
We won’t lose faith in contract
negotiations if City
will bargain in good faith
We are now into June and negotiations for a new collective bargaining agree- ment have picked up some speed. There are, at least, meetings being sched- uled and discussions taking place. But negotiations are not moving the way we would like. Or need.
We continue to face negotiation roadblocks from the City. Specifically, we have been getting some ridiculous proposals that appear to be an effort to work against settling the contract. We simply cannot work with proposals that do little more than beat us up and cater to people who want to diminish our con- tractual rights and protections for which we, as a union, have been bargaining with the City in good faith since 1981. These proposals intimate that the police
are out of control, which, as you know, is a complete lie.
We need to see proposals – and, quite frankly, a lot more action – that show that the City
will stand up for police officers the way it should. We do not need the continuous and re- lentless blaming of police for mistakes that make it look like everyone wearing a blue shirt is not doing his or her job to begin with.
But then that would mean that politicians or the top brass in the Department would have to take responsibility for the mistakes that have been made during the past four years. And nobody seems to want to do that. It’s easier to blame you and the Chicago FOP.
We will continue to move discussions and negotiations and hope that the City brings us proposals that make sense. Because, as I’ve said many times, anybody can sign a bad con- tract. We will not do that!
What we will do is challenge the City to start giving us reasonable proposals that help the women and men of the Chicago Police Department. The only thing that the City seems to be concerned about is checking off boxes related to the consent decree. That is not bargaining in good faith.
It is not good faith to make unilateral decisions such as moving the buffering time on body-worn cameras from 30 seconds to two minutes without consulting us. The reasons be- hind such a decision are driven by the consent decree more than what is actually happening with body camera use. So the City’s reasons for doing this just don’t hold up.
If the City wants to make lasting changes in the Department that actually help Chicago Police Officers, then it needs to work with the Fraternal Order of Police instead of shut- ting us out. When considering contract proposals, and any other decisions, really, the City needs to do to better realize how difficult this job is and try to help us by backing us up and supporting us. But, then, the lack of doing so has been a problem with the Department for many, many years.
As for the consent decree, the matter is now in front of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). We have made sound arguments against it. The National FOP has filed a brief detailing the problems that the Illinois Attorney General has caused for the Depart- ment through the consent decree.
I believe our case is strong and the support of the National FOP is a great asset. But we are not getting our hopes up too high because SCOTUS only hears about 70 cases a year from the thousands submitted.
Again, our arguments are very good. We are standing our ground, just like we will contin- ue to do against the City to require proposals that lead to a contract that helps the women and men of the FOP.
KEVIN GRAHAM
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JUNE 2019 5