If you’ve been conscious and even marginally lucid for the past several years, you should realize by now that decades of an unholy alliance between public employee unions and the State of Illinois’ mostly Democratic politicians (but don’t forget Republican governors “Big Jim” Thompson and George “Crook” Ryan) has saddled us with high public sector labor costs and crushing pension obligations.
But last night at Park Ridge City Hall, City Mgr. Jim Hock once again trotted out his Council Policy No. 8, which seems expressly designed to enhance the bargaining position of the City’s unionized employees, to give Hock and City staffers more authority over negotiations, and to tie the hands of the Council with even more secrecy about those negotiations.
Fortunately, six members of the City Council told Hock to pound sand, while only one alderman voted for Hock’s ridiculous policy: Tom Bernick (6th), who tried his shameless best to wheedle even one solid reason to support that policy out of the City’s outside labor attorney, Bob Smith, by punctuating his questions with the disclaimer: “I’m not a labor attorney.”
We know that, Little Tommy. You’re a “businessman,” as you keep reminding us every time you cast another one of your un-businesslike votes to spend money the City doesn’t have.
It appears Hock came up with Policy No. 8 as a diversion in response to Mayor Dave Schmidt’s scathing criticism of the firefighters negotiating “Ground Rules” that Fire Chief Mike Zywanski boneheaded-ly proposed last year without even consulting the mayor or the Council – and then took two weeks to summon up enough integrity to actually admit he did so. That seems to have been the motivation behind Ald. Rich DiPietro’s (2nd) pointed comment to Hock that no “ground rules” will be adopted by any negotiating team without Council approval.
Exactly!
A few other important points about labor negotiations were made last night, thanks to questions by Schmidt, that should start to level the playing field for the taxpayers in connection with the upcoming union negotiations.
The first is Attorney Smith’s acknowledgment that the City can publicly ask the various employee unions to conduct negotiations in “open” sessions which the public and press can attend and report about. Of course, we don’t expect the unions to agree: the last thing they want is public scrutiny of their negotiating demands and tactics.
Which leads us to the second important point raised by Schmidt in a question to Attorney Smith: in the absence of any restrictive guidelines (like those proposed last year by Chief Z) or policies (like Policy No. 8 proposed by Hock), the City can report the details of the negotiations – including the various demands and offers by both sides – to the taxpayers, so long as it is done in a “neutral” fashion.
Excellent!
Now all we need is for the Council to insist that the members of the City’s negotiating team(s) truthfully and accurately report those negotiation details so that the Council and the taxpayers are properly informed on a timely basis. Given past performance by certain members of City staff, however, that may pose a problem all its own.
But at least the tide finally appears to be turning a bit in favor of transparency for the people who pay for City government.
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7 comments so far
Way to go, guys. The public unions may own most politicians in this state, but at least it looks like they don’t own six of ours.
EDITOR’S NOTE: One small but essential step.
Negotiations in public is an interesting concept, but has it been done with union negotiations anwhere else?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know, but we doubt it – because all these bureaucrats (and all these “management” labor attorneys) are comfortable with secret closed session negotiations, “ground rules” that hog-tie and gag elected officials, and the resulting contracts that provide regular increases in compensation and benefits.
Frankly, we were surprised Attorney Smith could be pulled out of his same old same old to acknowledge that the City could invite (but not require) the unions to bargain in open session, and that the City could report on the negotiations publicly. That’s a big, and positive, change from the old ways.
Dog…………What will it take, or what steps need to be taken to get District 64 a little closer to these type of rules in their negotiations between the board and the teachers union ?
EDITOR’S NOTE: At least four new school board members who aren’t teacher-and-administrator sycophants. When current board members not on the “negotiating team” (i.e. who aren’t Heyde and Fioretto) are barred from even just sitting in on negotiations, you can be sure the attitude over there is not optimal for transparancy. And when you look at the sweet deals they keep giving the teachers, you can be equally sure this school board isn’t all that big on accountability, either.
Blame the teachers, blame the cops, blame the firemen, blame the public employees for what the politicians did. That’s all the Tea Partiers want to do.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, we’ve blamed “the politicians” (and the bureaucrats) for this entire debacle. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the money sucked out of the taxpayers’ pockets ends up in the pockets of the teachers, cops, firemen and public employees, so don’t even think about playing that “victim card” on us.
11:48am… “if the shoe fits” would be the appropriate cliche here.
As PW noted, they’ve been blaming the politicians all along. But you are dreaming if you think the politicians foisted this upon the public employees with the latter being unwilling or unknowing.
The “partnership” between the politicians and the public employees is longstanding and they have been greasing each others palms for as long. If you want to tell me that the public employees unions and union leaders just woke up and realized their pensions were a little short I have a bridge I’d like to offer you.
These two groups have been in cahoots for a long time. One groups wants to stay in office and the other wants to accrue generous pay and benefits at the taxpayers expense. Neither was ever willing to keep the other honest.
There may have been a time where one or both parties realized that they had a problem fulfilling promises or getting all that was promised, depending on what side of the issue(s) you may have been on, and at that point it was solvable without TOO much pain. But that time has long passed. And there will be plenty of pain and blame to go around.
Like PW said… save the victim card for someone who might buy your b.s.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bingo!
11:48, that was just plain stupid. Taxpayers are tired of footing the bill for bloated, inefficient, wasteful, corrupt government. What part of that do you disagree with?
taxpayers are also tired of footing the bill for tax dodges for billionaires, bailouts for billionaire corporations, and — well, you get my drift. Personally, I’d like a bumper sticker that says, “Next time your house is on fire, call a hedge fund manager” or “Next time somebody holds you up, make sure it’s not an oil company executive.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please print up some of those bumper stickers, put them on your car, and ask all the people in Park Ridge who feel the way you do to do the same. That will make it easier to identify the clueless.
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