Page 12 - February 2017

Arbitrator affirms notification requirement
During my tenure here at FOP, I have con- tinually seen the City of Chicago attempt to violate the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Usually a phone call can rectify
a commander’s order, but sometimes
a grievance needs to be filed to hold
attempted to observe the proceedings, and Special Assis- tant Cooperation Counsel Gary Schnadig, one of the city’s top attorneys and a Harvard grad, was the attorney for
KEVIN
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KILMER
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the city accountable for a contractu- R
the city. I say attempted, as I had Ms. O’Shaughnessy thrown out since these officers still had pending discipline cases against them and didn’t feel it was appropriate for her to be there. The arbitrator agreed and as a result I don’t think I will be allowed
to work for IPRA any time soon.
On Jan. 10, Arbitrator Zimmerman issued a deci-
sion on this matter. She predictably ruled in the Lodge’s favor as she agreed the City failed to adhere to Section 6.1(N) of the CBA. Her remedy for this was to order the Department to “cease and desist from this practice.” This is a huge win for the membership of Lodge 7, as the city cannot, now by an arbitration decision, strip someone without giving them written notification of why they are being stripped.
This is another example of Lodge 7 successfully fighting to maintain the contractual rights of the entire member- ship. Thanks to the officers who testified, the FOP griev- ance committee, the FOP Front Office, and our attorney Laura Finnegan, we were able to come out victorious against the city’s top dogs and maintain a very important right for the membership. d
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al violation. As you can imagine, the
amount of violations of the contract
has skyrocketed with this ongoing war on police
and has seeped its way into the administration of the Chicago Police Department. This is most likely due to commanders being promoted who have no business be- ing in that position and IAD and IPRA investigators who have no investigatory experience. As I have stated in past newsletters and roll calls, once these issues go in front of an independent arbitrator who doesn’t drink the Depart- ment’s Kool-Aid, the Lodge is successful almost all of the time.
A great example of this was a grievance written by Le- gal Defense Chairman Tom McDonagh. Detective Mc- Donagh was made aware of a few officers from District 4 and another one from District 11 who, when they began their tour, were told they had to report to Internal Affairs to be relieved of their police powers. When these officers asked their sergeant what they were being “stripped” for, they said they did not know. In the case of the officers from District 4, they went to the commander to ask him and he did not know either. In fact, the commander from District 4 as well as the affected officers’ sergeant accom- panied them to 35th Street to find out why these officers were being relieved of their police powers. Once again, even with a district commander facilitating the request, IAD would not or could not explain to these officers why they were being stripped. Many phone calls were generat- ed from the Lodge to find out why no written notification was given to these officers. It was explained to these “ad- ministrators” that section 6.1(N) in the CBA clearly states:
“When the Department relieves an officer of police powers, except in circumstances involving confidential investigations, the Department shall be required to give that Officer written notification of the category of the al- legations or events that have caused the Officer to be re- lieved of police powers. Said notification shall be given at the time that the Officer is relieved of police powers.”
This would seem extremely clear to any person read- ing this but not the Ivy League-educated staff at the may- or’s office. So, as we always do here at Lodge 7, an instant grievance was filed on behalf of all officers being stripped without written notification of the category of allegation. Arbitration was demanded in April 2016 and, per Presi- dent Angelo’s orders, we fast-tracked this arbitration for a September 2016 date to ensure a quick finding since this practice needs to cease immediately.
This must have been a very important case since the head of the IPRA, General Counsel Helen O’Shaughnessy,
12 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ FEBRUARY 2017
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