Can CPS force pension concessions on teachers?
Chicago Public Schools officials have found a legal weapon that could force pension concessions from the Chicago Teachers Union—or blow up in their faces.
The device is an untested clause in the teachers' contract that could allow CPS to unilaterally require union employees to contribute more to their retirement plans, eventually saving the district $140 million a year. Or it could provoke the second teachers strike under Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The contract expired June 30, and the two sides are in negotiations over a new agreement. Without a contract in place, CPS is not planning to pay for individual increases in compensation based on experience and education. It did the same thing in 2012, when stalled talks led to a seven-day strike.
The new battle is over the "pension pickup," an agreement by CPS to cover 7 percentage points of the 9 percent of salary that workers are supposed to contribute toward their pensions. The payments began in 1981 and have been incorporated in every contract since then. CPS CEO Forrest Claypool announced today that he is phasing out the pension pickup fornonunion, administrative employees, a move expected to save $2.9 million in fiscal 2016.
In negotiations with the teachers, CPS is seeking to phase out the pension pickup over an unspecified period. That effectively would be a 7 percent pay cut, according to union President Karen Lewis, who has called the demand a "strike-worthy issue."
Labor law prohibits employers from unilaterally changing the material terms of an expired contract that are mandatory subjects of collective bargaining, such as compensation. But a clause in the expired contract creates a “sunset provision” on the pension pickup, giving CPS officials the right to start phasing it out right away, according to a source.
CONTRACT LANGUAGE
The provision says: "This pension pickup will not constitute a continuing element of compensation or benefit beyond fiscal year 2015."
Robert Bloch, the general counsel of the teachers union, says CPS hasn't discussed Chicago Public Schools may pressure teachers union on pensions - Government News - Crain's Chicago Business: