Page 19 - November 2019 FOP

sought to enforce three arbitration awards issued by Arbitrator Roumell (in January, April and June 2016) over grievances chal- lenging the City’s failure to destroy complaint register (CR) files and other disciplinary records in a timely manner, as required by Section 8.4 of the parties’ contract. Initially, the arbitra- tor specifically enforced Section 8.4 of the parties’ agreement, which he found to be “consistent with state law and not con- trary to state public policy.”
Despite the well-reasoned arbitration awards, on Oct. 18, 2017, the lower Circuit Court entered a final judgment vacating the awards. In essence, in the Circuit Court’s opinion, by en- forcing the awards — which required the City to comply with Section 8.4 of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement and destroy CR files more than five years old — the awards would vi- olate state public policy requiring preservation of governmen- tal records, as established primarily by the Illinois State Records Act and Illinois Local Records Act.
The Lodge timely appealed the decision of the Circuit Court to the Illinois Appellate Court. On March 29, the Appellate Court issued its opinion, affirming the Oct. 18, 2017, judgment and the memorandum of opinion and order issued by the Circuit Court.
Now, Lodge 7 has another attempt to convince the highest court in the state that the arbitration awards can and should be enforced, even if there is an explicit, well-defined and dominant public policy requiring the retention of the records at issue.
The Illinois courts, and most other state and federal courts, have recognized that the courts have very limited roles in re- viewing arbitration decisions. Only a handful of reasons exist for which a court should vacate an arbitration award, none of
which were relied upon by the City, Circuit Court or Appellate Court in this case.
Instead, the City and lower courts relied upon a judicially crafted “public policy” argument for vacating the arbitration awards (roughly translated to “bowing to the political whims of the current anti-police climate”). In so doing, the City and low- er courts stretched the public policy exception beyond its pur- pose, and failed to give due regard to the strong public policy set forth in the Uniform Arbitration Act and Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, both of which favor collective bargaining and the enforcement of labor arbitration awards.
The issues presented in this case are of such fundamental im- portance that the Illinois AFL-CIO and Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Lodge Council filed their own amicus brief with the Illinois Supreme Court in support of Lodge 7’s appeal.
In its arguments, Lodge 7 continues to iterate that the awards enforce clear contractual provisions to which the City agreed, including both Section 8.4 and the contractual provision for binding arbitration contained in the parties’ agreement. The ar- bitrator carefully considered the City’s arguments and rejected them.
When a union and employer agree to binding arbitration, the courts owe deference to the arbitrator and may not insert their own preferences or opinions. To the extent the City wishes to change Section 8.4 of the current agreement, it should be at the bargaining table — along with all the other mandatory terms and conditions of employment.
Lodge 7 also requested oral arguments. A decision is expected sometime in 2020.
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