Page 16 - February 2016

Lodge prevails in reversal of taser waiver requirement
FOP LABOR REPORT
term of the agreement.

As I wrote in a previous article, one of the basic Recently, Lodge 7 learned of the City’s attempts to circum-

tenets of labor law is that contracts regulate vent its obligations under the parties’ agreement by dealing

terms and conditions of employees in their
directly with rank and file members. Specifically, as the result

workplace, setting forth all the rights, duties and
of a new City-wide initiative in which the City required

privileges that the parties to the collective bar-
mandatory training for all police officers to use tasers, the City

gaining agreement enjoy. The current agreement
began requiring police officers to sign a “Warnings, Risk and

Release Agreement” (waiver) from Taser International, in
between Lodge 7 and the City of Chicago con- tains the wage scale, the hours of work, overtime,
order to obtain the training necessary to handle and carry the
furloughs, disciplinary restriction/procedures,

tasers. If a police officer refused to sign the waiver, the officer
seniority provisions, and, most importantly, a

wouldbe se nth ome and den ied the oppo rtu nityt oobtain the
grievance and arbitration procedure which allows parties to

training . So me police office rs s igned the waivers . Lo dg e 7
resolve any contractual disputes which may arise during the

immediately objected, in writing, to the City’s requirement
Another equally important tenet is that an employer cannot
that our bargaining unit members execute the waiver without

deal directly with its employees, nor can it make unilateral
having bargained the issue with the Lodge.

The breadth of the release language contained in the waiver

changes to the agreement, generally, without first bargaining

with the union. An employer must only deal with the exclusive
was particularly troubling, as it released both Taser Interna-

bargaining representative – in this case, Lodge 7. If the City tional (the company that trained police officers) and the City

does not deal directly with Lodge 7 on mandatory subjects of from virtually any and all liability for any injury caused by a

bargaining, the union can pursue an unfair labor practice
charge with the state Labor Relations Board.
16 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MARCH 2016
PAT FIORETTO
CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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