Head of city’s largest police union suggests progress on new contract
A video posted online Friday by the head of the Chicago Police Department’s largest union appears to indicate progress in reaching an agreement with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration for a new contract for thousands of rank-and-file city police officers.
The announcement from John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, comes more than four years since the union’s last collective bargaining agreement with the city expired.
In a YouTube video posted on the FOP’s Facebook page, Catanzara said the union and Lightfoot’s negotiating team agreed to an 8-year “financial package.” But Catanzara did not specify in the video whether he was referring to a comprehensive collective bargaining agreement.
The last contract lasted three years.
“Beyond that, I’m going to have to hold my tongue for now,” he said in the video.
A Lightfoot spokesperson said the mayor has not been presented with or agreed to any deal.
The union and city officials have been divided on police disciplinary issues at a time when the FOP has also voiced opposition to a federal consent decree aimed at overhauling how the city’s historically troubled police force operates. Lightfoot has made reforming the department a priority.
“As she has said all along, any agreement with the FOP must include accountability and reform measures called for by the consent decree,” the spokesman, Alexander Murphy, said in a statement Friday.
Reached by telephone, Catanzara declined to comment.
In the video, Catanzara said Lightfoot, who has been out of town in California, has to review the latest proposal that her negotiating team and the FOP agreed on before it moves forward. Such an agreement would also have to be voted on by the rank-and-file and reviewed by City Council before it is ratified.
“There was a lot of hard work here. I know a lot of people thought that this was impossible,” Catanzara said in the video. “But all I can tell you is we absolutely came to a fair agreement here. This is not giving away the house in any way, shape or form.”
“There’s still a couple more steps to get there. But there’s reason to be optimistic that the light at the end of the tunnel is near, and we’ll see where this ends up,” Catanzara said.
Any kind of agreement on contract terms would be a rare positive note for Catanzara and Lightfoot, who have had a rocky relationship since she became mayor in 2019.
Last summer, the FOP and the city appeared starkly divided in contract negotiations when Lightfoot offered cops a 10% pay increase over a four-year period, along with changes to how the city handles disciplinary issues involving allegations of police misconduct.
Catanzara at the time acknowledged the union wasn’t happy with the city’s proposed changes to the contract that could weaken officers’ rights when faced with disciplinary investigations by the Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs or the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot served as head of the Chicago Police Board, the panel that rules on police discipline, and chaired thenMayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force. At the same time, she has been criticized by police reform activists who say she has been too friendly with law enforcement.
“There’s still a couple more steps to get there. But there’s reason to be optimistic that the light at the end of the tunnel is near, and we’ll see where this ends up.” — John Catanzara, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7