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June 17, 2011 Teamsters Push Forward as County Postpones Arbitration Cook County officials have time and time again proven they are good at one thing – stalling contract negotiations with the Teamsters. Cook County has asked for a continuance on interest arbitration with Teamsters Local 700. The next meeting will be held on July 5 at 9 a.m. After years of negotiations and failure by the County to produce an economic proposal for the Cook County Corrections contract, Local 700 and Cook County entered into interest arbitration. Both sides were to present beginning Friday, June 17. "We were prepared and ready to proceed," said William P. Logan, Local 700 Assistant Trustee. "We agreed to have our proposals ready by a certain date and have followed through on our promises every step of the way. I certainly cannot say the same about the County." Cook County officials claim a minor downgrade in bond rating has prevented them from successfully preparing a proposal. Though they learned of an error in the budget on June 10, County officials did nothing to prepare for the invetiable problems. That error would lead to their bond rating status being changed from Aa2 to Aa3 on June 16. "If this change in bond rating is so serious, which our financial experts have called minor, then why did they wait to share financial information that they had to have know would negatively impact their rating? Why hold on to this potentially job-altering information and use it to strategize against the Teamsters?" said John T. Coli, Local 700 Trustee. The announcement comes from the county just weeks before prinicpal negotiator Jonathon "It's clear that the County is using whatever they can scramble to find to delay the interest arbitration," said Logan. "The bottom line is, these arguments don't hold. Nothing they have presented raises legitimate enough concerns to suggest they could not have prepared an educated proposal." |
William P. Logan, President 1300 W. Higgins Rd. Suite 301 CONTACT YOUR STATE LEGISLATOR: UPCOMING EVENTS Monday, May 28 Wednesday, July 4 Saturday, August 4 |
