Emanuel hammers out labor contract
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com August 21, 2012 10:58AM
Updated: September 23, 2012 6:14AM
With difficult negotiations under way with police officers and firefighters and the threat of a teachers’ strike still looming, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday chalked up a less important, but still significant victory on the labor front. The city and two unions representing 2,530 public safety employees have hammered out and ratified a new four-year agreement that will limit pay raises to 6 percent over four years and substitute one-time “signing bonuses” of $150-to-$500 for retroactive pay.
Nearly 2,100 of the employees are members of the Service Employees International Union Local 73 representing traffic control and parking enforcement aides, crossing guards, detention aides, aviation security officers and inspectors, and officers and aides assigned to the city’s Commission on Animal Care and Control. The remaining 431 employees are members of IBEW Local 21. They include police communication operators at the city’s 911 center as well as aviation communication operators who take similar emergency calls at O’Hare.
Fran Spielman
