Setting the stage for a potential legal fight and protracted turmoil between Chicago’s largest police union and Mayor Brandon Johnson, a City Council committee on Thursday opposed a contract provision that would allow officers accused of serious misconduct to have their cases decided by a third party behind closed doors.
The committee recommendation rejecting the contract stipulation now heads to a vote next week before the full City Council, which, if it agrees with the committee, would kill a major part of the contract between the union representing rank-and-file officers and Johnson’s administration.
The provision would allow officers accused of misconduct to remove their cases from the Chicago Police Board docket and instead have them decided privately by an outside third party. It was the most controversial part of the proposed deal as public officials and critics said it subverted police reform efforts and took accusations of police misconduct out of the public eye.
[ Mayor Brandon Johnson to split Chicago police union contract into two votes, citing issue with disciplinary provisions ]
But in a separate vote Thursday, council members on the committee OK’d all the economic benefits included in the contract for rank-and-file officers, including 5% raises this year and next.
The workforce committee’s 10-5 vote actually aligned with the balancing act Johnson has tried to strike in his handling of the Chicago Police Department.
The mayor pledged on the campaign trail to not raise CPD’s budget, then pivoted to propose a spending plan that allocated a record $2 billion to the department, including the $60 million in planned bonuses and raises in the new police contract. While the department’s bottom line rose, Johnson reshuffled positions to reduce the number of beat cops and boost civilian positions and those dedicated to fulfilling the department’s consent decree requirements.
When the contract was tentatively agreed on less than two months ago, it was hailed as a great success for Johnson. But that quickly changed.
The late October announcement of an agreement between Johnson and the Fraternal Order of Police represented Johnson’s first major union deal since taking office. FOP President John Catanzara — who once warned of an exodus of officers and “blood in the streets” if Johnson prevailed in the election — called it “the best possible result at the end of the process.”
But the show of harmony was short-lived. Days after both sides celebrated the deal Johnson said he would seek to split up the vote on the contract: one to handle the economic package and another to address the disciplinary change. He urged members of the City Council to vote no on the provision allowing officers the option to have some of the most serious disciplinary cases heard by an independent third party behind closed doors rather than publicly before the Chicago Police Board.
“Ultimately, we will not allow this to undermine our efforts to advance reform, increase transparency and implement our vision for improved public safety and policing to make our city better, stronger, and safer,” Johnson said in a statement at the time.
That closed-door option was part of an arbitration award handed down earlier this year by arbitrator Edwin Benn during contract negotiations between the city and FOP.
Some alderpeople and reform advocates, including Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, said that provision “flies in the face” of efforts to strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms in the wake of the murder of Laquan McDonald. Police board hearings are open to the public, and the board’s decisions in the most serious disciplinary cases are also made publicly available. Misconduct cases overseen by a third party would be conducted out of public view.
But Catanzara said a no vote on the disciplinary issue would guarantee a costly and ultimately fruitless legal fight for the city, pledging to return to arbitration.
To concur with the rejection, the full City Council must do so on a vote of three-fifths — or 30 — of its members. If that happens and the council rejects the arbitrator’s award, that rejection and the council’s reasons will be sent back to Benn. If Benn adheres to his original decision or modifies it, that decision will come back to the City Council once again. If aldermen repeat their rejection, the issue could then be taken to Cook County courts.
“The standards to reverse an arbitrator’s award are limited and very challenging,” the city’s chief labor counsel, Jim Franczek, told aldermen.
Catanzara was more blunt in his assessment in October.
“The city’s gonna lose,” he said at the time.
On Thursday, Catanzara was among several high-profile speakers who addressed the committee before the vote.
Entering City Hall around 11 a.m. after walking through a small anti-FOP protest on LaSalle Street, he stressed the city’s place in labor history.
“Whether it’s appreciated or not, the FOP is a union,” he said, adding that any future legal action would be a waste of time.
“All you are doing is postponing the inevitable,” Catanzara said of any effort to vote down the arbitration award. “It is a fight you will not end up winning.”
[ FOP and city reach tentative contract deal that provides 20% raises over four years ]
But Ghian Foreman, the outgoing president of the Chicago Police Board, said approval of the arbitration award “would be a serious setback for police accountability in Chicago.”
There’s a “clear difference” between the FOP and other unions, said Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th.
“Other unions don’t have the right to kill or imprison anyone … yes, they also save lives, they also protect the people that need it,” he said. “That is why, when we talk about what justice looks like, a police board, along with other bodies established, provide transparency and nuance in that decision making. Because the public deserves to know why decisions were made.”
Vasquez said he hoped the FOP would partner with the city to propose a public arbitration process, at least, “because you’re gutting the Police Board to the point of nonexistence, which isn’t open government and isn’t good government.”
Anjanette Young, a social worker whose Near West Side home was the target of a bad CPD search in 2019, referenced the hundreds of millions of dollars approved by the City Council in recent years to settle lawsuits stemming from alleged police misconduct. Young’s lawsuit against the city was settled for $2.9 million, and the Chicago Police Board voted earlier this year to fire the sergeant who oversaw the botched raid.
“Paying out lawsuits is not justice,” said Young, who wore a shirt with the phrase “I AM HER” in all capital letters. “If you vote yes on this, you are being reckless with all of our tax dollars. I pay taxes, and my own tax money paid me for my trauma. That’s not OK.”
After the vote rejecting the contract provision, Young stood and applauded.
But Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, was among the five council members to support the arbitration award. He said he was “extremely troubled” by the tentative contract being divided between two votes.
What’s more, Beale said, it was all but certain that Benn, the arbitrator, would send the proposal right back to the City Council if it’s voted down next week.
“There’s always things within contracts that we don’t like,” Beale said. “Whether we like it or not, I think it’s our job to go ahead and ratify this contract and move on.
“I think it’ll cost us more money in the long run, even if it goes back to the arbitrator,” Beale added. “Because if we reject this, it’s going to go back to the arbitrator, and the same person that sent it to us is going to receive it, and they’re going to turn right around and say, ‘I told you, this is my decision,’ and it’s going to come right back to us.”
The proposed contract’s economic package, meanwhile, provides CPD officers with a nearly 20% pay raise over four years, in addition to a one-time $2,500 bonus for all officers and an annual $2,000 bonus for cops with more than 20 years on the job.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the FOP landed a deal boosting officer pay two years ago, including $365 million in retroactive pay increases dating back to 2017 and a series of new accountability measures. But several issues were left unresolved for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration to pick up. Compared to the deal the FOP struck with Lightfoot, the economic package passed by the committee today more than doubles the raises officers were entitled to in 2024 and 2025. It also includes sweeteners for other positions the department is seeking to fill.
Donna Rowling, the commander of the labor relations division at CPD, said the agreement gives Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling “the runway needed to implement the transformational changes needed to better the department, improve overall morale, assist with recruiting and retention efforts, and puts us on a good path to achieve consent decree compliance.”
The agreement will add incentives to attract recruits to the department’s field training program, crisis intervention teams, and bike officer ranks. It will also give management control to fill positions in CPD’s public transportation unit, rather than mostly relying on seniority, she said.
The contract also “removes impediments” to creating new homicide teams, which Rowling said will help improve homicide clearance rates. Changes to homicide teams will add a third night shift for detectives, allowing investigators to respond to homicide scenes during the overnight hours when evidence is best preserved and witness memories are freshest.
Franczek said the deal “is the longest contract ever negotiated between the city and the FOP,” lasting from July of 2017 through the end of June, 2027.
“This contract took the longest time to negotiate in the history of the city of Chicago, six and a half years or 78 months. The follow up, second longest, was a mere 52 months. This contract was by far the most difficult to negotiate,” spanning three mayoral administrations.
The agreement also includes a paid parental leave policy and “enshrines several accountability measures” that are part of the federal consent decree the department remains under. The department entered into the court-ordered consent decree following the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer.
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