Chicago City Wire

A Cook County judge last week denied the Chicago police union's request to extend a freeze on disciplinary cases before the Chicago Police Board. But Judge Michael Mullen is expected to rule on March 20 whether the police will win much sought after arbitration, moving the more serious disciplinary cases out from under the Board. 

Mullen is expected to rule for the police.  

Even Chicago City Council attorneys advised members, who twice voted down arbitration, that the law is firmly on the side of the police. An independent arbitrator, Edwin Benn, moreover, recently reaffirmed that the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act “guarantees police officers the right to have final and binding arbitration in their collective bargaining agreements.”

“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.”

Police Board president Kyle Cooper recently released a statement arguing that police arbitration should be rejected in order to maintain transparency and accountability in the disciplinary process.

“Rejecting the award may also give the City another opportunity to get the FOP back to the table to negotiate a mutually agreeable path forward,” Cooper wrote. “A union working for its members should want to negotiate a sensible resolution to this stalemate rather than jam the City Council members into an all or nothing vote which jeopardizes not only transparency but also the public’s faith in the police accountability system.”

No matter how Judge Mullen rules, an appeal is almost certain.