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required to bargain with the union to reach a collective bargaining agreement or contract. The late-Mayor Jane Byrne granted Lodge 7 recognition, thereby obligating the City to bargain with Lodge 7. Contracts regulate the terms and conditions of employees in their workplace, setting forth all the rights, duties and privileges parties to the agreement enjoy. Negotiations – the give and take in which the parties make proposals back and forth – is often protracted and can take a great amount of time and often lead to tumultuous exchanges.
Contracts, such as the one between Lodge 7 and the City, typi- cally contain the wage scale, the hours of work, disciplinary restriction/procedures, seniority provisions and, most important- ly, a grievance-and-arbitration procedure which allows the parties to use a system in which any issues over the contract will be resolved. Unlike other bargaining groups (both in the public and private sector), police officers are statutorily prohibited from going out on strike.
Aside from conducting secret-ballot elections and assisting in arbitration and mediation of labor disputes, the Board investigates and remedies unfair labor practices filed by unions, employees and public employers. The Act, among other things, prohibits an employer from committing an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP), which occurs when the employer engages in such acts as “interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of their rights granted in the Act” or “discriminating against employees in order to encourage or discourage member- ship in/or support for a labor organization;” or “refusing to bar- gain in good faith with the exclusive bargaining representative.”
An employer, for example, violates the Act by unilaterally changing the status quo on mandatory subjects of bargaining without giving the union the opportunity to bargain. An issue is a mandatory subject of bargaining when it involves the wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment. As you may recall from the October issue’s Labor Corner, Lodge 7 filed a ULP this summer over the City’s decision to unilaterally implement a new policy regarding hats, tattoos and body brandings, arguing that such conduct is a prohibited mid-term unilateral change to a mandatory subject of bargaining. Similarly, earlier this year,
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encountered is reactive and not proactive. Officers routinely respond to jobs after a crime has been committed because a citi- zen discovered the crime and notified the police. If officers are in the immediate vicinity when they receive an assignment, they can often arrive while the crime is still being committed. Lastly, officers can utilize their training and knowledge to identify a crime or potential crime.
This last scenario most closely fits with the proactive model, but what the critics fail to understand is that an officer’s actions are governed by the law related to reasonable suspicion. Officers can’t predict on a hunch who they think is a bad guy or who is about to break the law. Officers can’t spend their entire tour staking out individuals in the anticipation that they will commit a crime. Before stopping and detaining a citizen, officers, by law, must be able to articulate specific facts with rational inferences drawn from those facts that would allow a reasonable person to believe that crime has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur. Regard- less of critics’ desires, officers cannot just go out and “make con- tact,” “get some touches” or “find a reason to stop people.” Officers
Lodge 7 also filed a ULP over the City’s unilateral decision to merge the duties of the position of Forensic Investigator into the classification of Evidence Technician, resulting in the City no longer providing out-of-grade pay as set forth under the parties’ contract. The Local Panel deferred both charges to arbitration.
Once filed, a ULP charge is assigned to a Board Agent for inves- tigation. The Board Agent will speak with the parties and obtain information or documents to support the parties’ positions as to whether the Act has been violated. Often times, the investigator may also schedule a meeting with the parties in an effort to resolve the matter informally or to engage in a fact-finding ses- sion.
If the investigation reveals the existence of an issue of law or fact, then the Labor Board’s Executive Director will issue a formal complaint, setting the matter for hearing before one of the Board’s Administrative Law Judges (ALJ). Otherwise, if the investigation reveals that there are no issues which would warrant a hearing, the ULP charge will be dismissed.
The ALJ who presides over ULP hearings is impartial and acts in a role similar to a trial judge, ultimately adjudicating the case. A ULP hearing is adversarial in nature. The party that filed the ULP charge must satisfy the burden of proof that the Act has been violated. At the hearing, each party is allowed the opportunity to question witnesses under oath, present relevant written evidence, argue orally and file written briefs. Afterward, the ALJ reviews the entire record and issues a written Recommended Decision and Order, which can be reviewed (think appeal) by the full Labor Board (either the Local or State Panel). As with many legal pro- ceedings, the entire process takes time.
Hopefully this article shed some light on the role of the State Labor Relations Board and helped explain the role it plays in safe- guarding your statutory rights under the Act. d
Pasquale (Pat) A. Fioretto has been associated with the Baum Sig- man law firm since 1990, and as of Jan. 1, 1999, became a share- holder member of the firm. He concentrates his practice in the areas of labor and employment law, in both the public and private sectors.
know the law that governs their actions, but do the critics under- stand the law? Does the politician, the media member or the aver- age citizen? Are these people truly informed as to what a police officer encounters every single day, or are they simply picking the easiest target to blame for the complex problem of crime?
I pray that you all take heart in your valiant work, despite all of the critics. Teddy Roosevelt summed it up perfectly when he stat- ed that, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles... credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again ...but who does actually strive to do the deeds.” d
Dan Herbert is a former Chicago Police Officer, Cook County Pros- ecutor and in-house attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge #7. He is the founding member of The Law Offices of Daniel Q. Herbert and Associates.
16 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ NOVEMBER 2015