RAHM EMANUEL HAS NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS

3/12/13

The 1,178 rank and file members of the Chicago Police Sergeants’ Association have rejected, by a resounding 7-1 margin, the contract negotiated by their new president and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  The Mayor looks bad; Association President Jim Ade looks worse.   Far less importantly, the resounding rejection of the contract presents a quandary for those of us who are reflexively anti-Emanuel and reflexively pro-police.

This was a draconian contract:  a 9% pay raise over four years and an increase in maximum pension to 80% of salary from 75% of salary in exchange for

• An increase in the retirement age from 50 to 53.
• An increase in the pension contributions from 9% of salary to 12% of salary
• Initiating a contribution of 2% of retirement pay toward retiree health care costs
• Dropping cost of living adjustments from 3.0% to 2.5% and making those adjustments every other year rather than every year

To most people, though, while the changes in the contract may look severe, the result doesn’t.  Retiring at 53 at perhaps 80% of one’s salary would be a sweet deal to most of the people who pay the taxes that support the contract.   And those of us who are self-employed pay about 15% of our salaries into a far less generous social security program; those of us who work for others pay about the same amount when our employers’ contributions are considered.   Few of us get any kind of retiree health care.  So, on balance, while the changes are big, the ultimate contract still looks quite generous.  I say this as one who could not be more sympathetic to the dangerous and vital nature of the jobs of those in law enforcement, especially at this juncture in the great city of Chicago’s history.   Few have been as unabashedly pro-police, and especially pro-Chicago police, as yours truly.  See, as only one small, and perhaps not perfectly on point, example, my 2/24/13 piece, IT’S NOT GARRY McCARTHY’S FAULT.

More important, the city of Chicago is broke.   The major reason that the city is broke, besides the incredible mismanagement of the city’s finances in the latter years of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s reign, is the enormous pension burden the city faces.  Mayor Emanuel was right when he said

“This agreement was a break from the dishonesty of the past and provided a road map for a fair and honest pension system.”

The old deal was generous, but it was a lie.  The police, firefighters, and virtually all city employees would never have gotten their former, or existing, in some cases, pension and retiree health care deals because the city doesn’t, and won’t, have the money to make these false promises come true.   One wonders if even the newly negotiated deal was realistic given the financial problems the city faces and the inherent counterproductiveness, if you will, of solutions such as massive tax increases.

So, on the one hand, yours truly is disappointed to see the contract voted down.   On the other, I am instinctively pro-police and nearly instinctively anti-Emanuel.  It is great to see real Chicagoans (And, yes, I know I am no longer a “real Chicagoan” by virtue of my now living in the ‘burbs.   However, judging from number of years spent in the city, and my number of years caring about the city, I am way ahead of, say, Mayor Emanuel in my “Chicagoness.”   But I digress; at least I do so parenthetically.) stick it in the eye of the poseur from the north shore who now inhabits the Fifth Floor.   That it was not the 1,178 member Sergeants’ Association, but, rather the 25,000 plus member Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the proverbial cops on the beat, that may have been behind the contract’s demise makes the slap in the Mayor’s face sweeter…but the danger to the city’s finances far more dangerous.

Personal piques and affinities often have to be set aside in the interest of good governance…or of simply living one’s life in a world inhabited with people one finds agreeable and disagreeable.   In these very challenging times for what was once the world’s greatest city, there is even less room for personal loyalties or their opposite numbers.   Mr. Emanuel is facing reality; the sergeants, and, by all indications, the rank and file, are not.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.