It's 9-1-1 Time for Oak Lawn's 9-1-1 Dispatchers

Thirty-eight days after the ink had barely dried on the Oak Lawn’s 911 dispatchers’ new four-year contract, the dispatchers' union bargaining team was summoned back to the table in December 2012.

Alerted that the village was $1.1 million in the hole, Oak Lawn’s emergency telecommunicators--represented by the Metropolitan Alliance of Police Local 351--were asked to make $369,000 worth of concessions or face outsourcing if the union didn’t agree to help the village with its dire financial problems, according to the union’s attorney, Ron Cicinelli.

“We were asked to come up with $369,000. We were very upset. No one from the village told us they were considering outsourcing,” Cicinelli said. “We had 20 months of negotiations and not once were these financial problems mentioned to us. Thirty-eight days later, that’s when they hit us up. They had to have known this long ago.”

On Tuesday, the Oak Lawn Village Board will meet for its final budget planning session, in which recommendations will be made to outsource the village’s 911 dispatchers to a private vendor, in an effort to reduce costs without having to raise the village’s tax levy.

Oak Lawn’s emergency communications center dispatches 911 calls for Evergreen Park, Bridgeview and Burbank, as well as fire calls for Bedford Park and the Central Stickney Fire Protection District.

Earlier this month, Oak Lawn Village Manager Larry Deetjen announced that the village was reviewing a proposal from Norcomm Public Safety Communications, a private vendor based in Leyden Township, a plan that will purportedly save village taxpayers $893,000 over the next two years.

Looking back, Cincinelli described the village as “coy” bordering on bad faith bargaining, during negotiations after the emergency telecommunicators’ contract expired at the end of 2010.

“Negotiations went on enforce for almost 20 months,” Cicnelli said. “We had meeting after meeting. We tried to negotiate. In the case of dispatchers, they’re non-sworn (police) personnel. They were compelled to keep coming back to the table. We didn’t have the luxury of arbitration.”

When both sides finally reached an agreement, the dispatchers agreed to 2.5-percent pay increases for each year of the four-year contract. The union also reluctantly agreed to removing the dispatchers’ team leaders--working supervisors that filled in for absent or vacationing dispatchers during regular shifts--by making them non-union managers.

It was a plan that emergency management communications director, Kathy Hansen, endorsed. By removing the three working supervisors or team leaders, the union maintains that the village reduced available personnel and created a shortage in the dispatch center, causing overtime costs to spike.

“Kathy Hansen brought up moving supervisors multiple times, so that the team leaders could focus more on supervisory duties and than on dispatching,” the union’s attorney said. “The village created a huge financial crisis and their own overtime problem.”

In the middle of contract negotiations, one of two dispatchers on the bargaining team was promoted to a non-union supervisory position, a coincidence, in retrospect, not lost on Cicinelli.

Cicinelli also claims the village hired a consultant to evaluate the emergency communication center’s structure and costs while contract negotiations were still underway, unbeknown to the union.

Deetjen called the hiring of a consultant “standard operating practice.”

“Our standard operating practice in matters of this nature is to sit down with labor leaders and in a conference room with a flip chart presentation, go over every detail the management team has ‘first’ presented to our elected board of directors,” the village manager said in an email. “Our budget, audit, and follow-up requested financial information were all shared with the union.”

Among the recommended scenarios presented by the consultant, PCAP Concepts and Solutions, of Homewood, was outsourcing to a private vendor. In addition, the report, a copy of which was provided to Patch by the union, stated that “an alternative and equitable cost sharing arrangement for member agencies is warranted.”

Cicinelli maintains that during the concession negotiations, the village asked the 911 dispatchers to waive their 2.5-percent pay raises in hammering out a new contract that would have ran until the end of 2017.

The village also allegedly asked that 911 dispatchers give up an additional $360,000 annually for the duration of the amended contract, along with other concessions, such as forgoing holiday pay and wellness days, and taking unpaid furlough over the next four years.

The concessions do not affect police booking and community service officers, who are also represented by the Metropolitan Alliance of Police.

The dispatchers’ union -- now 20 in number due to attrition--rejected the village’s final concession. In turn, Cicinelli said the village rejected the union’s final concession offer that would have saved Oak Lawn $850,000.

“[The Village of Oak Lawn] is economically gutting the local,” Cicinelli said. “This is a union busting technique.”

Asked if the union’s claims were true, Deetjen stated that the village “does not bargain publicly.” Further adding to the growing conflict between management and the union, Deetjen was recently appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn to serve on a 9-1-1 Advisory Board, tasked to work with the Illinois Commerce Commission “to determine the 9-1-1 costs necessary for every 9-1-1 system to adequately function.”

The governor's advisory board is expected to make recommendations on whether to consolidate 9-1-1 functions to the Illinois General Assembly in February.

According to Mayor Sandra Bury, the village has extended an olive branch to the union dispatchers. Currently all communications between both sides are being handled by their attorneys.

Bury says she is still waiting for a response to her most recent letter.

“I’ve had three people from [the emergency communications center] come to me and express fear for public safety because the working environment in that department has degraded," Bury said. "It needs to come before the village board for a vote. 

The mayor further added:

"My one concern is that the union [attorney] is not properly informing the dispatchers of our communications. I’m not convinced that is happening."

The Oak Lawn Village Board's final budget planning session will take place at Village Hall at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26. The session is open to the public.

Read the documents referred to in this story:

• The consultant's report from November 2012.
• Union's letter to village attorney, Paul O'Grady, dated Feb. 13, 2013.
• Map Board Director Raymond Violetto's letter to mayor from Oct. 15, 2013.
• Mayor's response to MAP Board Director Raymond Violetto, dated Oct. 18, 2013.
• The village's final offer to union members.
• MAP Local 351's final offer.