A mayoral election looms and a federal investigation into City Hall corruption continues, but no matter the outcome on either front, city officials will face serious issues in 2007. At the top of the list are potentially contentious labor negotiations and a decision on whether to lease Midway.
Contracts with unions representing the overwhelming majority of the city’s 36,000 employees are set to expire June 30, and City Hall negotiators are expected to try to hold down wage increases, seek work-rule changes to increase productivity and attempt to make workers shoulder more of the increasing costs of health insurance.
If those issues sound familiar, it’s because they all were central to particularly long and sometimes acrimonious bargaining that finally ended with new contracts in mid-2006.
It took more than two years of sporadic back-and-forth to hammer out the retroactive agreements covering nearly 32,000 tradesmen, firefighters, office workers and other unionized employees.
“Negotiating with the city is always very difficult,” said Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor. “I just hope we can get a fair agreement that is good for both sides in a timely fashion. I am hoping we don’t have a repeat of the last time around when it took 28 months.”
Henry Bayer, executive director of Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, called the last negotiations “excruciating.” Council 31 represents certain city clerical and technical workers, including librarians and Health Department professionals.
“We hope the city will approach these negotiations with more focus than in the past,” Bayer said.
Local 2 of the Chicago Fire Fighters Union wants to arrive first at the bargaining table in an effort to make early progress. Bayer said he hopes to complete negotiations for his union before the current contract expires in June.
A go-slow approach has its advantages for City Hall. Pay increases for union workers ultimately must be paid retroactively but without interest. Non-union workers traditionally receive pay increases similar to those of their union colleagues, but their pay is frozen until new contracts are approved, and they don’t get retroactive increases.
“We have a long-term bargaining relationship with these unions,” said Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department. “We certainly are willing to work with them to conduct these negotiations on an expedited basis, and we have no interest in unduly prolonging negotiations.”
At the same time, Hoyle said, the city must ensure that any new contract “balances the interest of the city and its taxpayers and the union members.”
Mayor Daley has had a rocky relationship with labor in recent years. He has ordered layoffs of city workers during budget crunches, privatized a growing number of city services and infuriated labor leaders with the slow pace of negotiations on the most recent contracts.
Earlier this year, Daley angered leaders once again when he vetoed the “big-box” ordinance, which would have set a city minimum wage for employees of some big retail stores.
On another front, city officials, who for months have been studying the financial feasibility of leasing Midway in a deal with private investors, are expected to decide in 2007 whether to seek bids.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Labor costs represent more than 80 percent of the city’s corporate budget, which pays for day-to-day operations, such as garbage pick-up and police and fire service.
