The Labor Council provides full service union representation in negotiating and enforcing union contracts, improving salaries, working conditions and benefits for law enforcement professionals throughout Illinois.
Our members are protected 24 hours a day by a staff of 10 full-time, in-house attorneys and staff members who have the best proven track record of winning. We represent law enforcement professionals exclusively and full-time. When someone wants an expert, they call in the FOP Labor Council.
Standing up for our members effectively and responsibly is a daily occurrence. No unit is too big or too small. We provide training seminars and conduct annual meetings where our members determine the direction of their Labor Council.
We Are One Illinois recently held a rally at the state capitol rotunda to show solidarity among Illinois government workers whose pensions and collective bargaining rights are threatened. Around the country, workers are under attack, made to pay for an economy ravaged by the corporate elite. Workers converged at the Illinois State Capitol to make sure our elected officials heard our voices in unison.
Illinois Labor Stands Together To Defend Working Families
We Are One Illinois is focusing on the upcoming legislative veto session, which got underway on October 25, to demand that Governor Quinn and state legislators support a supplemental appropriation that would provide funding to honor all union contracts.
Labor will also be prepared to renew our strong opposition to any attempt to push through legislation that, in clear violation of the state constitution, reduces pension benefits for current employees.
Our message: Organized labor is united in insisting that Illinois cannot become another Wisconsin or Ohio. If public employee unions cannot bargain contracts that are legally enforceable, then collective bargaining will soon cease to be a viable vehicle for workers' aspirations. We call on state legislators to provide adequate funds to fulfill the State's obligations under our collective bargaining laws and to refuse to support SB 512 or any similar measure intended to drastically reduce pension benefits for public employees.
Collective Bargaining At Risk In Illinois
The rights of all public employees in Illinois have been put in grave jeopardy by Governor Quinn and leading legislators. Gov. Quinn has acted to void key provisions of negotiated union contracts and is aggressively defending his actions in state and federal court, alleging that public employers have no obligation to honor union contracts if they don't have sufficient funds.
The Governor's position that no contractual requirements exist because the legislature did not appropriate enough money strikes at the heart of public sector collective bargaining in Illinois. If upheld by the courts, it would allow any governor, mayor, school administrator, state university or community college president to unilaterally void union contracts at any time based on the claim of inadequate funding from the relevant legislative body. No union contract would ever truly be binding on any employer if the Governor's position is sustained.
If he prevails in this fight, Quinn will have accomplished by executive fiat, with the tacit approval of the Democratic legislative leaders, what Governor Walker did by legislation in Wisconsin - the evisceration of long-established bargaining rights for all public employees in the state of Illinois.
Public Pensions At Risk In Illinois
Key legislators, under strong pressure from big business interests, are seeking to drastically reduce the pension benefits of current public employees, effectively eliminating defined benefit pension plans as viable options for most employees. This legislation could be voted on in the Veto Session.
House Passes LEOSA Amendments Bill
Chuck Canterbury, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, hailed action in the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed S. 1132, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act Improvements Act, last night by voice vote under a suspension of the rules.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was the sponsor of S. 1132. With the active support of the Judiciary Committees Ranking Member, Senator Jefferson B. Sessions III (R-AL), the legislation was favorably reported by that committee in March of this year and passed by unanimous consent in May.
"I want to express my deep appreciation to Chairman Leahy and Majority Leader Hoyer for their commitment to this issue", Canterbury said. Both of these gentlemen are FOP champions who worked very hard, first to win passage in the Senate and then to get the bill on the calendar for action in the House before the end of the regular session. They deserve a lot of the credit for
today's victory.
The House companion bill, H.R. 3752, as introduced by Representative J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) and championed by Representatives Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD), the House Majority Leader, and Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. Representative Robert C. Scott (D-VA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security and an opponent of the original LEOSA, had previously announced his intention to hold the bill in subcommittee, which would have killed the bill for the year. FOP members in his home State and District, as well as continuous contact with the FOPs Washington staff and personal contact with Chairman Leahy eventually prevailed on Rep. Scott to release the bill for a floor vote.
"Many of our retired officers are facing significant hurdles because some States have failed to implement the law as intended by Congress. This bill, which the President has promised to sign, will help them overcome those obstacles", Canterbury said.
The bill, which was crafted in large part by the FOP, was given a high priority by the organization. No other law enforcement organizations or police groups took played any role in its successful passage despite intense interest in the bill on the part of active and retired officers. The legislation will improve certain provisions of the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA), especially with respect to retired law enforcement officers, and will make clear that law enforcement officers employed by the Amtrak and Federal Reserve Police Departments, as well as those employed by the executive branch of the Federal Government who are classified as a GS-0083 branch, especially the U.S. Department of Defense, meet the definition of qualified law enforcement officer in current law. The bill would also lower the aggregate years of service needed to meet the definition of qualified retired law enforcement officer from fifteen (15) to ten (10) and removes confusing language related to that same definition.
The bill will be transmitted to the President to be signed into law.
Officer Paul Nauden
suffered a fatal heart attack while conducting an undercover narcotics buy
as part of a large narcotics investigation.
While on scene he informed other undercover officers that he did not feel
well and could not complete the transaction. He left the scene in order to
not jeopardize the operation and the other officers. He flagged down a
passing ambulance a short distance away and was transported to a local
hospital. He passed away early the next morning.
Officer Nauden had served with the Chicago Police Department for 21 years
and was assigned to the Narcotics Section. He is survived by his wife and
two young daughters.
Slater & Gordon, the world's first publicly traded law firm is poised to grow again after agreeing to pay 53.8 million pounds (about $84 million in U.S. dollars) for a United Kingdom law firm that also specializes in personal injury work. The acquisition of Russell Jones & Walker is authorized under the Legal Services Act, but must be approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority before it is final, the Financial Times (reg. req.) reports. Under the LSA, the U.K. is the world's second country, after Australia, to allow law firms to be purchased on the open market by another firm…
Six doctors and scientists have sued the Food and Drug Administration after discovering that the agency snooped into their personal Gmail accounts, which the staffers accessed from their government computers. Government documents show that the secret surveillance took place, over a two-year period starting in January 2009, after the staffers complained to lawmakers in Congress that the FDA was approving risky medical devices, the Washington Post (reg. req.) reports. All six of the plaintiffs say in the Washington, D.C., federal suit that they suffered adverse consequences at work over the material the FDA gleaned in this manner from their Gmail…
After its merger with St. Louis-based Bryan Cave, about 18 of the partners from Denver's revered Holme Roberts & Owen are now listed as counsel on the firm's attorney roster, the Denver Business Journal reports. But only a "handful" of these changes among the more than 80 partners who came from Holme Roberts reflect anything other than a recognition of a fait accompli prior to the merger, according to Randy Miller. He serves as managing partner of Bryan Cave HRO's offices in Colorado. Partners who became of counsel "are people who have been practicing for 40 or 50 years” and…
There's bad news for those who may have stored personal and professional materials via the Megaupload.com website recently raided and shut down by the feds as they pursued a criminal online piracy case. Even if material was stored there in full compliance with copyright law, users of the site may not be able to get it back, CNN reports. Now that federal prosecutors are done reviewing Megaupload's files, "It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012," said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride in a letter…
Edwards Wildman Palmer is seeking to dismiss a suit by two former partners who claim they were effectively forced out of the firm due to an affair by the managing partner. The law firm says in its response to the Delaware lawsuit that the partnership agreement requires the claims to be resolved in arbitration, the Am Law Daily reports. One of the plaintiffs, Lawrence Cohen, claims his wife, who is also an attorney at the firm, had an affair with managing partner Walter Reed. The relationship led to a lost leadership position and a cut in pay, leading him to…
A Somali Bantu immigrant who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl will get a new trial because of a juror’s internet research about his culture. A trial judge had found the research didn’t affect the guilty verdict against Ali Abdi and wasn’t prejudicial, but the Vermont Supreme Court disagreed in a unanimous opinion. “There is no doubt that the information related directly to a subject that pervaded the trial from start to finish—Somali Bantu culture and its impact on the behavior and testimony of the trial witnesses,” the court said in its Jan. 26 opinion. The Burlington Free…
Hiring and pay for new associates remain in the doldrums at many large law firms. Firms that trimmed new associate classes by as much as half since 2008 are taking a cautious approach to hiring and holding the line on associate pay and bonuses, the Wall Street Journal reports. And those who do get hired have to work as many as 10 years before getting a chance at partnership. Law firms hiring in this environment can afford to be picky. Bill Dantzler, a hiring partner at White & Case, told the newspaper that solid candidates who once had a chance…
A Massachusetts lawyer told a judge last Thursday that he should have heeded the advice of the state Board of Bar Examiners, which had warned him not to start a solo practice because of the stress it entailed. The board issued a law license for the lawyer, Ilya Ablavsky, even though he had a prior record that included charges of making bomb threats while a student at Brandeis University in 1999, the Salem News reports. On Thursday, Ablavsky pleaded guilty to a charge of tampering with a court record for stealing a court file in a murder case. Ablavsky said…
A woman who describes herself as a middle-aged, midcareer government relations professional is thinking about a career change. The woman tells the Careerist she is going through career counseling and is thinking about becoming a lawyer with a focus on public service law. The blog asked two experts for advice. Both urged the woman to interview lawyers who did the same thing. And both urged caution. Marilyn Tucker, director of alumni career services at Georgetown Law Center, says some federal agencies have law related-positions that don’t require law degrees. “Ask yourself whether a law degree is really necessary for what…
If you believe Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David T. Prosser Jr., he just wanted to get out a press release. It was June 13, and the justice wanted to announce a decision involving Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial 2011 budget bill eliminating most government employee collective bargaining rights. What followed was a donnybrook among the justices. Before it was over, Prosser stood accused of putting fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in a choke hold. Bradley was accused of putting her fist in Prosser’s face. And the Dane County Sheriff’s Office was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to investigate. In…
A judge brought in to hear a lawyer's petition for removal of a North Carolina district attorney has suspended her from office, finding probable cause that she should be permanently removed from her elected office. A hearing on whether Durham DA Tracey Cline should be permanently removed will be held Feb. 13, the News & Observer reports. Three other judges had previously taken a dim view of Cline's campaign against Judge Orlando Hudson, the senior jurist in Durham, the newspaper notes, and one admonished her that she must take care to be accurate in court filings. Then attorney Kerry Sutton…
At the top of his game as Florida's unchallenged foreclosure king, David J. Stern had perhaps 100,000 cases and a back-office legal processing support operation that he sold for $60 million in 2010. Then came allegations of slipshod work and the firm's sudden collapse last year, after Fannie Mae pulled its files. Judges reportedly were left to deal with abandoned cases because the firm lacked the staff or funds to move to withdraw, and now-former employees sued for termination pay. Earlier this month, the purchasers who paid Stern $60 million for DJSP Enterprises sued him as well as an accountant…
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