Chicago City Wire

The Chicago police union’s appeal of a court ruling that permitted police arbitration in more serious disciplinary cases, provided the process is an open one, isn’t sitting well with a former union official, who originally spearheaded the move for cops.

“We got what we wanted and what’s provided for in the law,” Martin Preib, who pushed for arbitration when he was spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge #7 (FOP, the official Chicago police union title) from 2017 through 2021, told Chicago City Wire. “This appeal could drag on for years and leave cops in limbo.”

In filing the appeal, FOP president John Catanzara objected to Judge Michael Mullen’s March 21 ruling that required an open arbitration process. The union also objected to part of the ruling that suspended pay for officers while their cases went through arbitration.

The FOP maintains that the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act clearly gives the police, as it does other public employees, the right to arbitration. Independent arbitrator Edwin Benn inserted the right into the contract that City Council approved in December, but arbitration was voted on separately at the request of Mayor Brandon Johnson. Council rejected it twice, with opponents arguing that arbitration removes disciplinary cases from the Chicago Police Board, an open process, but one that police have maintained comes with an anti-police bias.

Benn reprimanded council members after the first rejection in late January.

“Those alderpersons who voted to reject the arbitration requirements of the Final Award which placed the statutory and constitutional right of arbitration for protests of disciplinary matters in excess of 365 days into the parties’ collective bargaining agreement therefore violated their oath of office to ‘... support ... the Constitution of the State of Illinois,’” Benn wrote on January 4 in a “Supplemental Final Opinion and Award.”

It’s unclear what happens with cases now before the Police Board, and cases that will come before the Board – potentially including the fates of five officers involved in last month’s shooting of Dexter Reed in Humboldt Park. Law enforcement experts have defended the actions of the officers, but some community groups and elected officials have condemned them. Dexter Reed’s family recently filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the five officers.

At the Police Board’s meeting last Thursday, President Kyle Cooper announced that the board would hold off on making final decisions on disciplinary matters in anticipation of an appeal, the Sun-Times reported.

Cooper noted that 16 officers with pending disciplinary cases have filed motions to transfer their cases to arbitration.

“The board will not be taking final action as it is still not clear what the outcome of an appeal would be, so at this time [the board] is choosing not to take any action,” Cooper said.

Arbitration would have a significant impact on the workload of the Board. Max Caproni, the Board’s executive director, told the Chicago Tribune for an earlier story: “Our expectation would be that very few, if any, of those cases would come to the Police Board if this change takes effect. Bottom line, I think about 90% of our docket, we would lose that, if this change took effect.”