Emanuel Strikes Back At FOP President After Police Sergeant's Union Deal Falls Through

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 13, 2013 7:40PM

Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t happy the Chicago Police Sergeants Association voted to reject a new labor contract Monday and is looking to take a pound of flesh from the man he blames the most for the vote: Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Shields.

The Sun-Times reports the Emanuel administration plans to use a clerical error by Shields to hurt the FOP at the bargaining table. Shields failed to inform the city by March 1, 2012 he intended to file a notice of termination of the union’s deal with the city. As a result, it automatically renewed (with a retroactive pay raise for police officers), although Shields insisted he gave the city ample notice.

This time around Shields provided ample notice of the union’s decision to terminate the agreement, which the city took as an admission he screwed up last year. An Emanuel source told the Sun-Times that, in order for the FOP’s rank-and-file to receive another pay raise, they’ll have to give up something.

“He screwed himself so badly that, when the deadline came up again, he was in a box. If he sends the letter [by March 1], he acknowledges he was wrong before. If he doesn’t, he’s two years in the hole,” said a mayoral confidante who asked to remain anonymous.

“Before, [the retro raise] was automatic. Now, it’s not. It’s not about canceling it or not. It doesn’t exist. State law and the contract are both very clear about this process and what it means. If they had done it properly, we would have been legally obligated to include this in the contract. Now, because the FOP messed this up, it gets thrown into the mix like everything else.”

In a statement to the Sun-Times, Shields accused Emanuel of being petty — way to state the obvious — and said this aggression would not stand.

“If the Mayor wants to play a game and deny a yearly raise to 10,000 people over a letter that means nothing, we will fight. ... Last March, the city told the FOP that it would negotiate with our bargaining unit out of its ‘deep respect’ for the men and women of the Chicago Police Department. If the mayor really respects us, he would sit down and negotiate with us. They know we are covered by the Illinois Public Employees Labor Relations Act, and the whole letter issue is bogus.”

We had to head over to Second City Cop to see how our favorite anonymous cop blogger had to say about the situation. He summed it up in three words: “Good job Mike.”