Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
Franklin Park’s firefighters’ union is turning to arbitration to hash out a new contract with the village more than a year after the firefighters’ last deal expired.
“For the last 50 years, we have been able to sit down and work things out to avoid ever going to the last resort,” said Douglas Halverson, president of the International Association of Firefighters Franklin Park Local 1526. “Tens of thousands have already been spent negotiating and that number will double by the end of arbitration.”
Halverson made his comments to the Franklin Park Village Board during the public comment section of the board’s meeting Monday evening. Arbitration over the contract was scheduled to begin Wednesday, July 15.The contract isn’t the only issue the firefighters’ union wants to go to arbitration over — Halverson says they also want to take up a number of grievances at another set of hearings. Those include going two years without raises, the closing of a fire station, having union members staff an ambulance at a lesser wage, and the village not hiring additional firefighters to bring the department to full capacity.
“When you sit down in executive session, have you asked, ‘Why so many grievances now?’ Have you asked why we filed an unfair labor practice?” he said to the board. “Have you asked, ‘How we can avoid arbitration?’ This union only put ink to paper after failed attempts to resolve these issues.”
According to documents obtained by the Franklin Park Herald-Journal, the most recent agreement with the union lasted from May 1, 2012, until April 30, 2014. Negotiations between the village and the firefighters’ union began months before the expiration of that agreement and have continued into this year.
Halverson went on to say the reason the union agreed to concessions, like staffing the ambulance at a lesser wage and trying to “do more with less,” was that the village said it was in a deficit five years ago and the union was under the impression that, once the most recent contract expired, the village would fund the department better.
“For the first time in my career, we staff a ladder truck with two firefighters. This is unsafe,” said Halverson.
Franklin Park officials believe they’ve offered the union a fair deal, according to an emailed statement from the village’s attorney.
“The village has negotiated with the fire department’s union in good faith and has strived to accommodate many of the issues raised by the union’s leadership … the village believes the compensation package offered to the union’s leadership is fair and equitable and will continue to work toward a reasonable resolution of the union’s salary and other financial demands.”
Unlike litigation, arbitration takes place out of court. The two sides choose an impartial third party, an arbitrator, to oversee a hearing where each side presents evidence and testimony. The union and the village will split the cost of the arbitrator’s services, according to the most recent union contract. The arbitrator will then submit a ruling on the conflict within 30 days of the hearings and the decision will be final and binding to all parties.
