Contract for more than 1,000 city workers in the balance as unions spar, point fingers at city

Two unions representing two sets of Chicago city workers, forced to bargain their contracts jointly, are in the midst of an extraordinary spat, accusing each other and the city of playing politics and failing to hold up their ends of the deal.

City workers who are members of SEIU Local 73 bargain their contracts jointly with city employees who are members of IBEW Local 21.

Local 73 says it represents more than 800 workers including traffic control, parking enforcement and aviation safety employees, while Local 21 represents more than 350 911 operators and dispatchers at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and aviation communication officers based at both Chicago airports.

The workers’ last contract expired in June 2022 and they haven’t had a raise since then, representatives for SEIU said.

The city jointly bargained a new agreement with SEIU and IBEW, which SEIU took to a vote among its members for approval, the union said.

IBEW, however, is still trying to resolve non-economic issues in the contract for its members, including additional compensatory time for 911 operators. It’s accused the city of bad faith bargaining in a filing with the Illinois Labor Relations Board, and the board has issued a complaint ordering a hearing in the case.

IBEW Local 21 President Paul Wright believes the city’s offer was illegal and said he would be derelict in his own duties under the state’s labor relations act if he took it to a vote.

Meanwhile, SEIU, which said it bargained raises between 3% and 5% in addition to a total of $3,000 in bonus pandemic pay per member, said it’s concerned those wins could be in jeopardy because of Chicago’s budget woes and an impending deadline to allocate American Rescue Plan funds by the end of the year.

The union pointed fingers at both the city and Wright, whom SEIU Local 73 Vice President Jeffrey Howard described as “holding our members and their raises hostage” in a statement to the Tribune.

SEIU Local 73 wants to petition the Illinois Labor Relations Board to sever its joint bargaining agreement with Local 21 and allow its members to ratify the contract, but needs both Local 21’s and the city’s blessing to do so.

“We negotiate a contract with the city, a contract that we think is fair and represents the work that we do, and when it comes time to pay that contract — crickets,” Howard said at a news conference Tuesday. “Our workers are tired. We want our money.”

“I’m not interested in wasting another moment of time on severing it until this contract is done,” Wright said. Wright told the Tribune he had been open to severing the agreement until city officials made it clear they would not consider agreeing to do so until after the contract had been completed.

“I’m disgusted with the continual antics of the city and the SEIU,” he said.

Wright said issues related to comp time were particularly important because of serious mental health concerns amongst 911 operators.

Wright said he understands the concerns that SEIU has regarding the rescue plan funds.

“However, if the city was bargaining in good faith, this thing would’ve been done two years ago,” he said.

The city’s attorneys denied allegations of bad faith bargaining in filings with the Illinois labor board in August. Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department, declined to provide additional comment citing pending litigation. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

SEIU is one of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s biggest labor allies. The local endorsed him in the run-up to the mayoral election in 2022, and Johnson received about $4.4 million in campaign donations from SEIU affiliates during his campaign.

At a news conference Tuesday, SEIU Local 73 member Karen Lindberg, a parking enforcement worker, alluded to that support.

“We and our families will remember this at the ballot box in the next election,” Lindberg said. “Our families know what we’re going through.”

It’s not the first time the city has clashed with SEIU Local 73. Last summer, the local filed a union petition to represent election workers at the city’s Board of Election Commissioners. But attorneys for the board opposed the union effort, arguing in a legal filing that union membership would constitute “political activity” that election workers are barred from taking part in.

“We supported Mayor Johnson because he reflected the values of SEIU Local 73,” Howard said when asked about the union’s support for the mayor Tuesday.

“I still think he reflects those values. And I think they’re dealing with very complex and complicated issues, but in the end, the buck stops with him, and so he has to figure out how to get this done.”

Chicago Tribune’s Jake Sheridan contributed.