AFSCME Council 31 Staff Representative Nefertiti Smith has been promoted to Region 1 Director, replacing the retired Peter Schmaltz.
We are all proud of Nef and wish her well in her new position! Our Local will be assigned a new Staff Representative from AFSCME Council 31 soon.
Congratulations Nef! You truly deserve this promotion!
The arbitration date is quickly approaching for the hearing between the county and AFSCME’s Sheriff’s Locals. The outcome will have definite ramifications on our next contract! Stay tuned for further updates!
News agencies throughout Chicago have reported that Chicago Police Officers have a bounty out on their heads, courtesy of the local gang bangers. Friends of current officers, who are Chicago Policemen, have verified that this information is being passed along at roll calls throughout the city. Some television stations have shown a copy of this memo in their report. A cop a night the memo warns. To date this hasn’t come true, but that doesn’t dismiss the threat. Just the fact that police officers are being targeted is unsettling, and yet we’re still scheduling field work. Is it a hoax? Why take that chance?
Three UNIFORMED Chicago Policemen have been gunned down off duty. Police Superintendent Weis has stated that these individuals who killed these officers have no respect for the police or law enforcement in general, and no respect for life. And yet, YOU are still required by our department to go into all neighborhoods in Cook County, City and Suburban, and conduct field work twice monthly. Doesn’t Chief Judge Evans or Acting Chief Probation Officer Reyes own a television, radio or read the newspapers? Don’t their trusted staffs see and hear this either? Apparently not. Hear no evil. See no evil. Then there’s no evil, right? Ignore it and it will go away. We do far too much of this anyway. Address this issue.
We have argued that field work is unsafe for unarmed officers. We took the case all the way to arbitration, where we had a Chicago Police Officer, a current Deputy Chief and various other probation officers testify that the streets of Chicago are not the same as they were in the 1960’s! Crime is up. Violence is up. Drive-by shootings increase as the weather warms up, and decline slightly as it cools down. Murder rates always rise after Memorial Day, and decline after Columbus Day. It’s OK for you to be seen in the streets. It’s good for the departmental image. Bulls Eye. It’s actually sad that neighborhood residents have become accustomed to hearing gun shots daily. Should this be a ‘normal’ way of life?!?!
After hearing all of this information, the arbitrator took the pathway down the middle. The arbitrator did not want to rule that the county should stop field work immediately, even though he had more than sufficient evidence to rule that way. No, he chose to have the county ‘train’ its officers. That’s why there have been MANDATORY classes in Street Awareness, Legal & Liability Issues, Gang Crimes, Self-Defense and yes, the ever popular Pepper Spray training.
The Union didn’t demand that you get this training, subsequent to what you have been told by the training staff. The arbitrator did. Having you trained on how to use your radio(s), pepper spray, and where to hide behind when shots ring out is the arbitrators’ answer to continuing the dangerous practice of field work. Not keeping you out of the neighborhoods, or properly equipping you to do this part of the job wasn’t remedied either. No, that isn’t a choice. No guns. No vests. No asp. No county car. Just a clipboard, outdated pepper spray and two radios. That’s what the arbitrator ruled you need to do your job. Common sense is your own. The county doesn’t give you that either.
Continuing to put officers in unnecessary danger is the ridiculous choice. Do you feel safer with all the retraining? The arbitrator was wrong. We’re just hoping that he’s not ‘dead wrong.’ Shootings only occur at night when all the players are out, right? Mornings and early afternoons are completely safe as no drug dealing, drive-by shootings or random acts of stupidity don’t happen in broad daylight, right?!?!
We don’t want to make it look like we’re endorsing our weapons officers to be out in the streets either. We’re not. They have safety equipment, but this isn’t enough should they enter a gang war. We’re supposed to believe that they’re safer because they have ‘training and equipment.’ They work at night when most of the fun starts. But that’s why they make the ‘big money.’ Management wants to have our weapons officers out in the streets more than they’re already scheduled time. More time with a target square on their backs. No critical incident plan is widely made known. No plan on what to do should one of us gets shot or shoots someone else is detailed. Who’s going to be the ‘go to’ guy? Wisniewski? Reyes? Quinn, Bush or Haywood? Loizon? Sobieski? Lasky? Anybody? Anybody?
It’s time to stop the insanity Chief Judge Evans, before you”re making an appearance at a wake for one of your fallen probation officers. Stop field work for unarmed officers. Restrict field work for armed officers who encounter gang bangers and other hardened criminals before it”s too late. What’s the point of our officers working the streets until the early morning hours? We’re outnumbered, just like the Chicago Police. The risk of injury is too great. We’re not the Chicago Police. Stop thinking we are.
You, Chief Judge Evans can bring sanity to this department, something that the current administration chosen by you hasn’t done. Ask yourself this question. If the Chicago Police aren’t safe in the streets, are we? Ask Mayor Daley about attending the funerals of his three fallen officers. Will you be sending a marked car for the procession or are you coming in your own personal vehicle?
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Governor Quinn has signed three bills into law during a string of events across Illinois.
In Chicago on Saturday, Quinn signed the Veterans and Servicemembers Court Treatment Act. Quinn’s office says the law will let Illinois counties create judicial courts for veterans with mental health or substance abuse disorders.
Quinn signed a bill in Bloomington that his office says will let Illinois dentists volunteer care at nonprofit health clinics. The clinic can then receive state payments.
And in Harrisburg, Quinn signed a bill that will give Illinois health care providers easier access to patient bathrooms in hospitals. The governor’s office says the legislation is called Seth’s Law, named after a 22-year-old Iraq War veteran who died when hospital workers couldn’t gain access to his bathroom.
Judge Evans is already on this one boys and girls! Looks like he gets his wish and we get to do all of the work. Again. Watch for Judge Gaughn to get involved with this court.
Associated Press is reporting that Walgreen Co. will end its relationship with competitor CVS Caremark’s pharmacy benefits management business because of complaints about prices and policies designed to drive customers toward CVS stores.
This decision does not effect current Caremark plans, but if Walgreen’s stands by this decision it won’t handle any Caremark-managed prescriptions in about three (3) years.
Walgreen’s will not participate in plans that are awarded to Caremark or contracts renewed with Caremark starting yesterday, Monday, June 7th.
Walgreen’s is giving up billions of dollars in revenue with this move.
And you thought that contract negotiations couldn’t get any worse!!! Bet the County doesn’t know about this one yet?!?!
(From POLITICO…)
Public employee unions are emerging as public enemy number1 across the country.
Governors have made sporadic attempts over the past decade to fundamentally alter the spiraling pension costs that have consumed increasing shares of state budgets — and that legislatures in states like New York and California often sweetened as a gift to political allies.
The recent revenue crunch, though, has given governors and big-city mayors new leverage. The early initiatives have largely been stopgap measures: everything from furloughs in the two biggest states, New York and California, to initiatives like Bloomberg’s deal last week with teachers unions to cancel raises in exchange for avoiding layoffs.
Other executives have won larger, structural changes. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, signed into law last month a bill changing benefits for all five of the state’s pension systems — raising the retirement age, limiting pension raises, capping maximum benefits and ending public pensions for people who work in another public job.
California, however, remains ground zero for pension fights, as the seat of both the nation’s highest-profile budget crises and some of its most powerful public unions. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been fighting them since he took office, and they have handed him his most stinging political defeats.
Now, though, Schwarzenegger — in his last months as governor — is gearing up for what he views as a final, climactic battle over public-sector pensions.
“The atmosphere has changed,” Schwarzenegger told POLITICO. “People understand that they have to lay off their workers or they don’t have the money for their family. What they don’t like is when there is a certain group that doesn’t like to make the sacrifices.”
Schwarzenegger said he “will not sign” a budget without pension reform.
“I will hold up the budget. It doesn’t matter how long it drags [on] — into the summer or fall or into November or after my administration — and I think the people will support that,” he said.
Schwarzenegger’s political judgment reflects a growing national consensus that public-sector unions may be at their most vulnerable point ever.
“The public mood is clearly changing regarding these issues,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
A likely 2012 presidential candidate, Pawlenty boasts of weathering a 44-day bus strike in 2004, the longest in the nation’s history. He recalled that during that “knock-down, drag-out brawl,” he shored up support by telling the public that “bus drivers under one version of their contract could get retirement benefits for the rest of their lives after working for just 15 years.”
“If you inform the public and workers in the private sector about the inflated benefits and compensation packages of public employees, and then you remind the taxpayers that they’re footing the bill for that, they get on the reform train pretty quickly,” Pawlenty told POLITICO.
The assault has caught the giant national unions that represent public employees largely flat-footed, and many leaders concede privately that they find themselves on defense.
“The Al Shankers and the Victor Gotbaums … they’re not around anymore,” said Norman Adler, former political director of the New York public workers union, referring to public-sector union leaders who battled through the crises of the 1960s. “The people who have replaced them are either not as sophisticated or not as talented as the old guard was.”
But a consultant to major unions pointed to a different, more structural shift: Public-sector unions are increasingly the face of American labor, and they have prospered as private-sector unions disappeared and workers’ wages stagnated.
“The face of labor today is now public employee unions whose wages and benefits largely outstrip those of average Americans,” the consultant said.
Democrats from Obama on down, however, have backed the pressure on teachers unions to drop inflexible work rules and accept private-sector-style merit pay. But the sharp attacks on the workers and their leaders remain largely a Republican theme. Illinois’s Quinn, for instance, who won a major victory over unions in pension changes (which apply only to workers hired starting next January) distanced himself from the Republican rhetoric.
“I don’t get involved in that kind of scapegoating; I don’t think it’s right,” he said, after hearing Daniels’s remark about a “privileged class.” “I respect public employees, I respect teachers, and I think they deserve a pension,” he said.
Quinn noted that pension liabilities had blossomed under the Republicans who governed Illinois from 1977 to 2002, and indeed, local Republicans from coast to coast have often accepted the support of unions and defended their perks. That day appears to be over, at least for now. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, campaigning to replace Schwarzenegger, has promised to cut 10 percent of the state work force, or 40,000 jobs.
The lingering question, however, is whether the turn against public-sector unions is here to stay. Union leaders hope that rising state revenues will ease the pressure, while Republicans insist there has been a deep shift in the perception of public workers and even of typically popular teachers.
“The question now is, is there going to be a paradigm shift?” said E.J. McMahon, director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
“Or are the unions simply going to hunker down, let the wave wash over them and emerge stronger than ever?”
Today is June 1st, a very important day for our ongoing contract negotiations.
Today, final offers were due from AFSCME and the County in the Sheriff’s Binding Arbitration .
No information is available yet, but your negotiation team will find out next week when we return to the table to see what move(s) the county is going to make to try and settle this contract before years’ end! Stay tuned for any information that we may share!
(From The Daily Herald…)
Opposition to Cook County President Todd Stroger’s lame-duck raises, hirings and so-called 24-nine personal-services contracts collapsed at the county-board meeting Tuesday after commissioners failed to override a veto of an ordinance giving them oversight on new raises.
The attempt to override got nine votes, but 11 were needed. Chicago Democratic Commissioners William Beavers, Jerry Butler, Earlean Collins, Joseph Mario Moreno and Deborah Sims voted against, as did Crestwood Democrat Joan Patricia Murphy. Two critical votes were lost when Chicago Democrat Robert Steele was absent, and Glenview Republican Gregg Goslin left before the issue came up at the end of a marathon six-hour session.
“We lost two of our members who aren’t here. You can’t pass it if they’re not here,” said Evanston Democratic Commissioner Larry Suffredin. He admitted he was disappointed the meeting didn’t provide more of a forum on Stroger’s lame-duck spending, but added, “I think we’ll find another way to do it, as long as we can get the data.”
To that end, the board accepted a complete countywide report on raises from Human Resources Chief Joe Sova, who said new ones would be coming with each two-week pay period. Yet, while Riverside Republican Tony Peraica commented on the “familiar names” found on the list, otherwise commissioners held fire until a later date.
Since being defeated in the Democratic primary in February, Stroger has hired his former campaign spokeswoman, Carla Oglesby, as deputy chief of staff, and has handed out hefty raises to Chief Financial Officer Jaye Williams and Communications Director Eugene Mullins, among others. Oglesby has also handled the dispersal of several “24-nine” contracts, named for being worth $24,900 and change, just under the $25,000 figure requiring board approval, including one to her own public-relations firm.
“Once these raises are given, they’re not going to be taken back,” Suffredin said, so the board needs to know about them to consider them in future budgets. Finance Committee Chairman John Daley, a Chicago Democrat, also argued for an override, which would simply have implemented a procedure for how those raises would be reported to the board, which would then be given a nonbinding vote on them.
Yet other commissioners worried they were overstepping their bounds as the legislative branch imposing on the executive. “I don’t think it’s legal,” Moreno said.
At the end of the meeting, Stroger seemed to glory in his victory. “Is there anything else anyone wants to talk about?” he said. Yet the commissioners said nothing, and the meeting was adjourned.
Does this mean that Cook County is the ‘Windy County’? Since flexing their muscles to repeal the “Stroger Tax” earlier this year, the board has done nothing but give us lip service! Did you expect something more???
Peter Schmaltz has decided to retire from AFSCME Council 31 after these current contract negotiations are completed.
Peter is a very special friend to this Local. You can literally say that without him, we wouldn’t be here!
Thanks Peter for your 25+ years of service to us here in Local 3486. We will miss you, not only in the next round of contract negotiations, but as a friend and mentor to all of us who serve as officers of this Local. We wish you all the best in your pending retirement!
On Tuesday, Universal negotiations took place with the county side of the bargaining table showing some signs of softening their hard lined stance on getting their way on some basic issues.
The County has made some language offers, which will basically be status quo. This is a good sign as they are beginning to sort through some of the minor issues, and begin to focus on the major issues of wages and benefits. The final offers for Interest Arbitration are due on June 1st.
While the offers made in Interest Arbitration don’t necessarily apply to the rest of us immediately, they will set the table for the rest of our negotiations. Most importantly will be what the wages package will be and what if any health care changes will also be asked for by the sheriff’s locals involved in this arbitration.
The County isn’t happy that an arbitration is occurring before the general contract has been settled. Maybe they should have tried harder to negotiate in good faith earlier? The next date for contract negotiations will be after the final offers have been submitted to the arbitrator. Stay tuned for updates!