CHICAGO — Chicago must reinstate city employees who were fired for refusing to comply with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and rescind the requirement, a state administrative law judge has ruled.
The decision came Wednesday in a case before the Illinois Labor Relations Board involving more than 20 unions representing city employees, which filed an unfair labor practices charge with the state panel after Lightfoot imposed the policy in the fall of 2021.
A separate but similar matter involving the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the city’s largest police union, remains pending.
In a 78-page decision in combined cases brought by the Coalition of Unionized Public Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, Administrative Law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal found that although the city had the right to implement a vaccine requirement for its employees, it was obligated to negotiate with the union over the effects of that policy.
The effects of the policy the city imposed included placing employees who didn’t report their vaccination status or refused to be vaccinated without a proper exemption on “no-pay status” and later terminating their employment, both of which should have been negotiated with the unions until reaching an agreement or an impasse, the administrative judge found.
Docking pay “is not an inevitable consequence of the vaccine mandate or reporting requirement because no-pay status is not the sole means by which the (city) could have enforced its policy,” Hamburg-Gal wrote.
Likewise, the city unilaterally changed the status quo in August of last year when it began terminating employees who hadn’t complied with the policy, electing “to pursue a far harsher approach than it had taken before against violators of its vaccination policy.”
“Although the policy on its face states that any violations of the policy could result in discipline up to and including termination, the (city) established a past practice of treating violations more leniently,” the judge wrote.
The judge ordered the city to reinstate the affected employees, with their personnel records expunged, and to compensate workers for any lost pay or benefits that resulted, with 7% interest. The unions should be allowed to negotiate to keep any parts of the policy they like, the judge said.
A spokesperson for AFSCME Council 31 applauded the ruling as a “strong decision (that) will bolster workers’ rights going forward.”
“The ruling affirms that when an employer contemplates significant changes to terms of employment, it has a duty to bargain in good faith with the union,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said in a statement. “In this case, the city did not do that.”
It’s unclear how many current and former employees the decision will affect, and the city has 30 days to ask the labor board to reconsider. That puts the deadline just days after Lightfoot will leave office and Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson will take over.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said the ruling “defends the rights of workers to have a say in their workplace through collective bargaining” and said he hopes the city won’t seek to file exceptions.
A Lightfoot spokesman said the city is “reviewing the ruling and evaluating next steps.”
“The record before the administrative law judge tells a completely different story,” Lightfoot spokesman Cesar Rodriguez said in a statement. “Yesterday’s ruling was an erroneous decision that does not follow the law, facts nor importantly the science.”
While the FOP’s matter is still pending and tied up in court, the police union’s president, John Catanzara, celebrated the decision as “a great day for labor in Chicago and the state of Illinois.”
“Where that leaves our case, there’s no reason to really even have it because these are all the same issues,” Catanzara told members in a video message, adding that the union would provide further updates.
The board’s ruling concerned many of the same issues that were raised in a separate federal lawsuit filed against the city last week on behalf of 15 current and former Chicago police officers.
The officers allege the city imposed illegal disciplinary measures against them after they cited religious exemptions in their initial refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
What’s more, the officers claim that, even after receiving the shot or agreeing to frequent COVID-19 testing, they were stripped of their police powers and placed on no-pay status. The lawsuit also notes that five of the 15 plaintiff officers have since returned to full-time active duty.
“The United States Supreme Court does not require the level of inquiry being raised by the City; rather, an objection based on a sincerely held religious belief is enough to invoke Plaintiffs’ First Amendment protections to seek and obtain a religious exemption,” the lawsuit states.
Lightfoot went public with her intention to mandate the vaccine for city employees in late July 2021, and her administration went back and forth with the unions before it went into effect in mid-October of that year. But the city neither came to terms with its employees over the changes nor met the requirements to declare negotiations had reached an impasse, the judge found.
Late last summer, the administration suspended a requirement that unvaccinated employees who had received an exemption undergo twice-weekly testing.
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