OIG Review of the City’s Collective Bargaining Agreements
Summary
The terms and conditions of employment for over 90 percent of the morethan 30,000 City workers, ranging from salary schedules and vacation policies to staffing rules and disciplinary procedures, will be on the table. Such an opportunity to reassess the existing agreements and to negotiate CBAs that reflect both the immense value of Chicago’s unionized public servants and the fiscal realities confronting the City has not presented itself in a long while.
Executive Summary
In this report, we describe recently expired and soon to expire City CBAs, noting the impact of some current provisions and suggesting where amendments may improve economy, effectiveness, and integrity. OIG takes no position on the relative merits of any particular change to the existing agreements. We acknowledge that negotiations are elaborate endeavors involving many discrete and intertwining issues, and that the process cannot work if, from the outset, particular positions are set in stone. However, so long as a term is not subject to outside legal constraints, it should be fair game for discussion and compromise, with the end result being contracts that reflect our values, and are consonant with our shared responsibility to be careful stewards of taxpayer resources and to serve the interests of the community.
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