When is a contract not a contract?

When the union officials for one of the City’s collective bargaining units – in this case, the Public Works employees – aren’t happy with the deal they may have negotiated.  Or didn’t.

According to an article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Union: Park Ridge hiked insurance rates without telling us,” 06.10.13), Local 150 of the Int’l Union of Operating Engineers (the “OEs”) claims it reached an agreement with the City’s negotiators regarding an insurance rate increase, but the contract approved by the City Council contained an increase averaging $68/month more than what the OEs actually negotiated.

So the OEs have filed a complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board to resolve this dispute.  They reportedly will also be filing another complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor because the City promptly began imposing that new rate, even though the OEs allegedly have not ratified the contract.

At this point we can’t tell whether this is a SNAFU or just another one-off FUBAR, but it sure looks like yet another annoying example of how the City’s labor negotiators are like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, regularly being out-maneuvered and out-negotiated by their union counterparts.  And then compounding the problem with some form or other of boneheaded conduct – like implementing a contract that hasn’t been ratified by the union, assuming the H-A story is accurate.

And, for the record, such an assumption might be suspect, given that the H-A reporter – one Rick Kambic, pinch-hitting for H-A City beat reporter Jennifer Johnson because the latter reportedly might have a conflict of interest via a close relative’s being a City employee – repeatedly refers in his story to the City Council “commissioners” rather than aldermen.  But, hey, that’s close enough for government work, or for reporting about it.

You may recall that this was the contract where Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton was instructed by the Council to negotiate a cost-neutral deal; i.e., the cost of any increase in wages would be off-set by an equal dollar amount of union concessions on benefits.  You may also recall that Hamilton and friends simply ignored the Council’s direction and returned with a deal that, instead of cost-neutral, will cost the City (i.e., the taxpayers) $25,000/year of “new” cash for the next three years.  And Hamilton didn’t even offer an explanation of why they did it.

If this were a college basketball game circa 2000, that kind of in-your-face from the ACM would have had Hamilton fans chiding the Council with chants of: “Who’s your daddy? Hamilton!”

But the “old” Council didn’t seem to mind that kind of facial, meekly approving the contract and then over-riding Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto as it’s last official act before the “new” Council – or, more accurately, newly-elected Alds. Nick Milissis and Roger Shubert – were sworn in.

Given this backdrop, it probably should come as no surprise that the taxpayers may take another trimming, compliments of Hamilton and his “negotiating team.”  And with this state’s Labor Relations Board and Labor Department stacked with the pro-union appointees of King Michael Madigan and whatever governor – Democrat or Republican – he deems worthy to actually sign such appointments, the chances of the City winning what likely will end up as a “he said, she said” game of liars’ poker are not good.

Fortunately, the amounts we’re talking about here aren’t bank-breaking.  But as we’ve written many times before, each arbitrary, non-performance based raise sets the stage for the next one, and the one after that.  And when it comes to police and fire contracts where impasse requires binding arbitration, the spiraling raises given to other employees provide the perfect excuse for an arbitrator to impose similar arbitrary, non-performance based raises on the City (a/k/a, the taxpayers) for police and firemen.

Of course, the simplest and best way to avoid this kind of chicanery would be to open the negotiations of these contracts to the public.  Not only open the doors and windows on them, but televise and videotape them so the taxpayers who foot the bill for these cock-eyed processes can actually see and hear how they are being represented by their public officials – and also see and hear the unions’ cases for consistently higher pay and better benefits without greater or more productive effort.

That way, when “he said, she said” disputes about what the parties agreed to arise, we could just “go to the videotape” – as legendary New York sportscaster Warner Wolf repeatedly invited – rather than run to the Dept. of Labor or the ILRB.

But public employee unions absolutely hate the idea of exposing all their demands and posturing to public scrutiny.  It’s a whole lot tougher to wrap yourself in the mantle of downtrodden-but-altruistic public servants when the public gets to see and hear your demands for multi-year contracts with 7% annual raises.  And as we saw with the harebrained firefighters’ negotiation “Ground Rules” secretly proposed by Fire Chief Mike Zywanski, our public officials don’t seem to like the idea of the taxpayers looking over their shoulders, either.

So long as our elected officials keep enabling this kind of behavior, however, it will continue – in the darkness and under radio silence.  So long as unions think they can get a do-over.

Starting with planting a story in a local newspaper.

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