A group of high-ranking Chicago police officials are pushing to form their own union, setting up a possible fight with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.
In a letter last month to Militza Pagán, Johnson’s deputy mayor of labor relations, an attorney with the Illinois Police Benevolent & Protective Association asked the city to “voluntarily recognize” a new collective bargaining unit of police commanders and deputy chiefs. The union already represents sergeants, lieutenants and captains.
The union attorney, David Amerson, noted Chicago’s “long and proud history of being a pro-union city” and pointed to an executive order Johnson signed in 2023 expressing his commitment to “expand the right to organize for all Chicagoans.”
A source with knowledge of the unionization push said it was launched after the city curtailed how much time exempt-rank supervisors can spend on medical leave.
The issue only surfaced when two commanders were told they needed to return to work, as one remained hospitalized with a serious illness and the other was recovering from back surgery, the source said.
Commanders and deputy chiefs used to be able to tap into a year of medical leave, like other sworn department members. Now, they must accrue medical time at a rate of one day for every month worked, according to the source.
However, a mayoral spokesperson insisted there has been no change in policy.
“The Mayor’s Office met with the PBPA [Illinois Police Benevolent & Protective Association] in mid-July to gain an initial understanding of the issues facing Deputy Chiefs and Commanders and discuss their position,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The Mayor’s Office looks forward to continuing these conversations with Deputy Chiefs and Commanders, the PBPA, and leadership from the Chicago Police Department.”
Commanders and deputy chiefs aren’t afforded other benefits that other rank-and-file cops get, including earned time-off, pay for being prepared to work during off-hours and allowances for uniforms, the source said.
Lieutenants are now turning down promotions to become commanders because of the disparities — something that never used to happen, the source said.
“If you have an organization as large as ours, you need good leadership at the top in order to effectively run the department,” the source said. “And I have a big fear that we are going to get the complete wrong people, and the good people — the right people you want in those positions — are just turning it down.”
If Johnson’s administration doesn’t recognize a bargaining unit composed of commanders and deputy chiefs, the police supervisors plan to take their case to the Illinois Labor Relations Board and argue that a 2022 amendment to the state constitution gives them the right to unionize.
The board certified a bargaining unit of deputy district chiefs from the Chicago Fire Department in February. Fire battalion chiefs and Chicago Public Schools principals are among the other supervisors that can also unionize.
If the police commanders and deputy chiefs fall short at the labor board, they could then sue.
In an interview, Amerson said “the biggest benefit of collective bargaining is it professionalizes the service.”
“We used to have, in Chicago and across the state and across the country, patronage models for who could be a police officer,” he told the Sun-Times. “You better know the ward boss, you better know the alderman if you want to be a police officer.
“We moved away from that in the ’70s [and] ’80s and became a professionalized service, and I believe collective bargaining enshrines that. It removes the ideas of nepotism, favoritism, politics, so to speak, from advancing through the ranks. And it just generally encourages professionalism and civil service over patronage and political favor.”
Almost all commanders and deputy chiefs have supported the effort to form a union. The source said it’s “the right thing to do to build good leadership in the department.”
“It’s not about, OK, we’re crying because we don’t get paid enough,” the source said. “It’s, we’re crying that there’s not gonna be a good bench ready to go as things move forward.”