HISTORY
 

Every Local seems to have a defining moment. Ours was a set of events begining in march of 1992.

Our Illinois State Appellate Court ruling can be found here

These events were put to print by Michael G. Matejka in "Fiery Struggle - Illinois Fire Fighters Build A Union, 1901-1985" a book published by the illinois labor history society. The book looks back at the history of the firefighters labor movement in Illinois from its origins and can be purchased at there website www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/booklist.htm

Skokie: Is it a strike?

.....If the Wheeling case helped establish fire officers' rights within the law, other arbitrations solidified both fire fighter and management rights. Just as the National Labor Relations Act, through years of rulings, helped clarify both sides rights and obligations, the ILRB was doing the same things. The union's nature changed too, as decisions which once were made with militant mass actions now became subjects of legal bargaining and arbitration. The union still tried to mobilize members and a core of activists and local leaders helped maintain union activity, but the average member did not always respond to union activity like an earlier generation. The law created a certain level of comfort for union members. Mass mobilizations were still part of union activities, but rarely was it the "life and death" struggle that triggered illegal strikes in the 1970s. Working within the confines of the law, the union established appropriate concerted activities. Even with the law, an effective union still needs a unified membership, willing to support its leadership in confrontation. At times concerted activity by union members, protesting a department action, could lead to slow-downs n productivity. Was this a strike? A running skirmish, lasting five years, between the Skokie Fire Department and Fire Fighter Local 3033, tested the new law's boundaries. At times this skirmish seemed more like a personality conflict, as a Chief's attitude conflicted with the union members. Instead of playing out on the picket line, this conflict headed to the hearing room, where both sides leveled charges against each other. The essential question eventually decided was whether or not withdrawing voluntary duties was a strike.

The legal key to the dispute was the law's Management Rights clause. City managers could claim a strict interpretation, saying the law only required them to bargain over wages, hours and conditions, leaving the city free to define other regulations. Fire fighters argued that "conditions" was broader and could include bargaining over other situations. Fire chiefs were often caught in the middle, the focal point of departmental skirmishes. Skokie became a significant test case of what the city could and could not do without first bargaining.

In January 1992 Local 3033 began contract negotiations with Skokie. It was 18 months before a contract was completed, with numerous grievances and arbitrations in the process. The problem was not just at the bargaining table; Skokie Fire Chief James Eaves displayed a pattern of asserting management rights, often in contradiction to department practice, seemingly to provoke a union response. As the seesaw battle between the two continued, legal representation followed the pattern of the previous twenty years, with J. Dale Berry representing Local 3033 and Seyfarth, Shaw representing the Village of Skokie.

A series of grievances and arbitrations began in 1992 that culminated in the fire fighters' January 1997 refusal to participate in promotional tests, a refusal that the Village challenged as an illegal strike. Before this issue was settled a long list of grievances were fought, most over contract rights issues:

o In March 1992 the Fire Department changed the method for fire fighters to earn Sick Leave Bonus Days, without negotiating the change. The union filed a grievance.

o That October Chief Eaves refused to allow furlough selection without the union first accepting the Fire Department's computation of past furloughs and waiving all rights to grieve. This was in contradiction to a previously agreed upon labor-management policy. A grievance was filed on November 2, but resolved on that same day.

o November 6 another grievance was filed on the paramedic's stipend pay, when the Village changed the payment method without bargaining that change. On November 17 the Village Manager sent a letter to all paramedics' homes, explaining the change and the new program. The union responded with another
grievance, charging the Chief with violating negotiating rules, paramedic salaries and rights of recognition and representation.

o In January 1993 the department issuing reprimands against two union members, Lieutenant Steve Laing and Fire fighter Phillip Gust, who had delivered a union Freedom of Information request to the Village Hall during duty hours, a past practice. A grievance was filed, which was settled in the union's favor in April. All disciplines were expunged from the record.

o In February Local 3033 sent a letter to the Chief, complaining about verbally abusive activity of a Fire Captain and Deputy Chief. On July 26 fire fighter Larry Sowa, after receiving another verbal tirade from the same captain, called the Skokie Police and filed a report.

o A particular galling incident for the fire fighters' was the Chief's censure of public recognition. In July 1993 the union held a recognition ceremony for fire fighters who had performed bravely during a November 2, 1992 fire in neighboring Lincolnwood. The Chief, Mayor and other city staff attended. Later in 1993 the local American Legion contacted Local 3033, seeking nominees
for a "Fire Fighter/Paramedic of the Year" award. The local veteran's organization explained that the Chief had ignored their request for nominees. In February 1994 two fire fighters were nominated by Local 3033 and received the award that May. That July union president Bruce Wimer was threatened with discipline for both the 1993 and 1994 recognitions, with the Chief claiming those efforts were his prerogative. The Chief demanded the awards be returned; the dispute was settled when the recipients agreed to donate their awards to the union's annual "boot
day"

o In August 1993 the Village changed promotional requirements for fire
lieutenants and captains, without informing the union. It was over a year later before the union learned of the change, and only after filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

o In September 1993 fire fighter Sowa, who had filed the police report about the verbal abuse, filed a formal request with the Village for an investigation.

o Later that month the union found a change in their Kelly day procedures omitted from the contract's printed version. This change eliminated fire fighters' right to trade a Kelly day for a regular day off. There was no negotiations. When union president Wimer spoke to the Deputy Chief about it, the union leader was publicly berated by the superior officer.

o In March 1994 the union negotiated a wage reopener on its contact. The union also sent a letter to village manager Al Rigoni, questioning proposed automatic aid response policies with adjoining municipalities. The union had previously raised these issues with the Chief in a labor-management meeting. The Chief recommended to the village manager that he should not meet with the union.

o That summer fire fighters found that letters of recognition from surrounding towns, issued after mutual aid calls, were not being placed in those fire fighters' personnel files.

o In July 1994 the most salient issue commenced when promotional tests for lieutenant were given. Only two fire fighters passed the test; the village then re-evaluated the test, allowed for more possibly correct answers, and added seven fire fighters to the promotion list, with the two who initially passed ranked first and second. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge in August, charging a violation of its concerted activity rights, particularly over the letters of recognition not being properly filed. The next month the union met with the village manager, trying to resolve the charge. In October language was devised to resolve the charge by both sides, but Chief Eaves rejected it. However, Skokie's attorney, Ted dark of Seyfarth, Shaw, accepted the resolution and signed off on it.

o In November, the fire department changed requirements for voluntary efforts within the department, particularly within the print shop, requiring daily activity logs. The two fire fighters who were volunteering for the duty, Dave Nellessen and Sowa, both said they would withdraw their voluntary effort if the requirement was in place. The two fire fighters stated that the Chief told them: "If Jim Eaves is backed into a corner, he will come out swinging. If my life is miserable, your lives and the person that told you to do this, will be miserable."

These two incidents, the lieutenant's test and the print shop refusal, became the precedent setting ingredients.

Filing grievances was one response, but a lengthy one. Fire fighter frustration finally resulted in action. In 1996 while negotiating their contract, two issues were unresolved: the fire lieutenant promotion process and disability pay Both of these matters were sent, by mutual agreement of the Local and the Village, to an arbitrator, Steve Briggs, for a final settlement.

In October 1996 while this arbitration was in process, Local 3033 sent a letter to the Skokie Fire and Police Commission, charging the board with unilaterally changing the exam eligibility procedures, without union consultation. The letter included the names of 79 union members, who said they would not participate in any promotional exam with these changes as long as the arbitration was still pending. This was 100 percent of members eligible to take the exam.

On December 2, the Commission formally announced a promotional test for January 18,1997. On December 4 the local responded, demanding that Skokie call off the exam until after the arbitration. On December 11 the Local wrote the Commission, naming 28 fire fighters who were willing to take the exam, provided they were all permitted to participate. On December 17, Local 3033 filed an unfair labor practice with the ILRB, because the village was attempting to test and establish a new fire lieutenant eligibility list while the subject was under arbitration. Local 3033 charged that the Village, by instituting a new promotional list, would make it impossible for the interest arbitration panel to effectively establish an agreed process.

The exam day, January 18, was extremely quiet, because no one showed up to take the exam. Skokie responded by charging Local 3033 with an "unlawful self-help measure," for restraining and coercing employees who were exercising their rights to take the exam. The Village also charged the union with refusing to bargain because of the exam boycott, claiming that the boycott was an unlawful strike.

Boycotting the exam was a serious move by the fire fighters, as promotional exams are the path to higher pay and rank.

Thus two serious charges hung in the balance, one from the union charging the Village with bad faith bargaining, a second from the Village charging Local 3033 with refusing to bargain and an illegal strike. That October the ILRB director dropped the Village's charges against the union but these were appealed, so it was a year later when the Illinois State Labor Relations Board responded, agreeing with its director and dropping the charges against the union. The board ruled that the union, in its involvement with its members, did not break the law, which said that the union must actually threaten or coerce workers to violate the act. The ILRB cited the U.S. Supreme Court, which noted that unions are prohibited from using "violence intimidation, and reprisals or threats thereof," but no "methods of peaceful persuasion."

The Board also ruled against the "strike" charge because participation in a promotional exam is a voluntary activity, and members choosing not to participate is not a work stoppage. In an important clarifying argument, the Board noted that the strike ban in the law was intended to "protect the public from the interruption or termination of essential government services, ...not..to establish a blanket prohibition against all concerted activities by protective service employees." Because Local 3033 members did not refuse their mandated job duties, they were not stopping services, and therefore, not on strike.

The Village responded by appealing the dispute to a higher court. In March 1999 the First Judicial District Appeals Court supported Local 3033, with the ILRB ruling was upheld by that court. The following June the Court issued its stand as an opinion, meaning it was a precedent for future cases, allowing concerted activity that did not threaten vital services.

Meanwhile, the union's charges against the Village also made their way through the legal process. In April 1997 the ILRB put the union's charges "on hold," without making a ruling. Local 3033 was protesting Skokie's promotional test while the issue was under arbitration; however, because Local 3033 members boycotted the test, Skokie's arbitration violation was a moot point. In July 1999, the union withdrew its charges against Skokie.

Another long-running dispute, over workers' compensation protection, was settled by a new state law, not a grievance. Skokie's workers compensation position, which it entitled, "Responsibility for medical injury in the line of duty," was eventually over-ruled by the state legislature.

After years of charges and counter-charges filed both by the Village and Local 3033, a change finally came in 1999 with a renewed relationship between the local and Village Manager Al Rigioni.

During a series of labor-management seminars and retreats in January 1999, the Village manager began to relax, according to Wimer, seeing "that we're not such bad guys and we've got legitimate issues." With their contract due, the two sides used those seminars to try a new route, negotiating a three year contract without using attorneys in negotiations. "We were able to straighten out 99 percent of our problems once that relationship was built," Wimer added.

Perhaps the testament to a sea change in labor-management relations in Skokie was the Chief Eaves exit in 2001. His replacement, Martin Oscarson, was founding president of Local 3033 in 1986. He was serving as a lieutenant and surpassed other higher officers in winning the chief's title, another sign of increased trust between labor and management in the Skokie Fire Department.

Wimer credited the membership for standing "100 percent behind their executive board through the Chief's efforts against us, which also included a tremendous amount of communication with the membership." He also credited J. Dale Berry as the critical legal component the union needed. "We needed a street fighter to get through this, someone who knew Seyfarth, Shaw. Bringing in Dale was the quintessential move, with his strategy and knowledge, we did it."

Fire fighter strikes are illegal under Illinois law; but Skokie Local 3033, using the legal process, defined areas of collective action which showed union solidarity, without disrupting essential services to the public. Skokie fire fighters established a right to union activity that perhaps disrupts internal affairs, but did not disrupt public services. This helped clarify union rights under the law's management rights section. The union could still mobilize its members, still withdraw from voluntary activities, and thus still show management its seriousness in disputed issues.