In a move that could lead to his first labor dispute since taking office, Mayor Brandon Johnson will seek to split up a proposed new contract with the Chicago police union into two City Council votes, an unusual bid to quash a ruling allowing private disciplinary hearings for officers.

The move — which the mayor’s office did not detail last week when touting the new agreement with the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police — could set the stage for a lengthy legal battle between the city and police union, whose president vowed Tuesday to take the fight to court if necessary.

Johnson, a progressive who clashed with FOP leadership during the mayoral race, announced a pending contract last Friday that would provide a roughly 20% raise for officers. But he also said he was “deeply disappointed” with a decision reached by a labor arbitrator to grant officers the option to have some of the most serious disciplinary cases heard by an independent third party behind closed doors rather than publicly before the Chicago Police Board.

In a statement Monday, Johnson called on the City Council “to reject this measure when it comes up in the coming weeks.”

Mayoral press secretary Ronnie Reese clarified the contract will be split into two items: the “bulk” of the agreement including economics and the consent decree in one council vote, and the arbitrator’s disciplinary measure in the other.

“While we recognize police officers’ right to arbitration, it is crucial that disciplinary cases be handled in a manner that allows for public transparency and true accountability,” Johnson wrote in his Monday statement. “Ultimately, we will not allow this to undermine our efforts to advance reform, increase transparency and implement our vision for improved public safety and policing to make our city better, stronger, and safer.”

John Catanzara, president of FOP Lodge 7, dismissed the announcement on Tuesday by saying regardless of City Council’s proceedings, he was confident that the arbitrator’s ruling would remain in place because “it is enshrined in labor law.”

“We’re not asking for anything anyone else isn’t afforded,” Catanzara said Tuesday. “It’s silly we’re having this conversation.”

Catanzara said that if the City Council votes down the disciplinary provision, then the union intends to return to arbitration with the city. Any agreement reached there would still require City Council approval, but if aldermen vote it down again, the matter would likely be settled in court.

“And the city’s gonna lose,” Catanzara said of any future court fight over the proposed contract.

Traditionally, all collective bargaining agreements have required an up-or-down vote from City Council. Johnson’s move to bifurcate the bulk of the contract, including salaries and consent decree provisions, from the controversial disciplinary measure is “fascinating and unusual,” said labor expert Bob Bruno, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“It’s all negotiated as a package, and you don’t have a contract until you’ve got agreement on all of the matters and all of the matters are integrated,” Bruno said about collective bargaining agreements. “So it’s kind of like a cloth or a quilt or a tapestry. If you pull strings in one section, it begins to unravel the other.”

The last FOP contract was approved in 2021 under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who secured the deal granting officers 20% raises over eight years after much tense negotiation. This summer, as the city and FOP discussed their next agreement and outstanding issues, independent arbitrator Edwin Benn agreed with the union’s contention that CPD officers accused of serious misconduct should have the option to have their disciplinary cases decided by a third-party instead of the Chicago Police Board.

In announcing the tentative agreement last Friday, Catanzara had said the union “always had the ability to exercise” the option to choose who decides their officers’ serious disciplinary cases.

“That’s what every other collective bargaining agreement affords members, is arbitration for termination cases, and that’s all we are asking for here,” Catanzara said in a YouTube video. “If members and our attorneys think our members will get a fairer shake at the police board on a certain case, then so be it. That will be the officer’s decision to go that route.”

The proposed contract was made public late Monday. In response to scrutiny of the disciplinary award, Benn cited more than a half-dozen police collective bargaining agreements in the Chicago suburbs that include the same option for officers.

In addition to Johnson’s statement Monday evening calling for aldermen to vote down the disciplinary provision of the contract, the mayor’s floor leader, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the council would hold two votes: one on the contract’s economic package, and another on disciplinary procedures. Should either item fail, the city and FOP would need to return to the bargaining table.

“For the record, this has always been the administration’s position,” Ramirez-Rosa wrote. “This was explained to me and other alders last week Thursday.”

However, Benn made it clear in his ruling that the entire contract and all its provisions would require a single vote by the City Council. What’s more, Benn said a judge would likely defer to his ruling if the issue spilled into court.

“Should ratification not be obtained and litigation instituted, not only will this already remarkably prolonged labor dispute be further prolonged to the detriment of all involved (including the citizens of the City), but … prolonged litigation will, in the end, prove futile,” Benn wrote. “This remarkably long labor dispute must now come to an end.”

After the proposed contract agreement was reached, Cicely Porter-Adams, the city’s chief labor negotiator, wrote a highly critical dissent, also made public Monday.

“(Benn’s) prioritization of the private interests involved overlooks the vital public interest at stake in an open hearing,” Porter-Adams wrote. “(Benn) can make light of it all he wishes, but the fact remains that substantial portions of the citizenry are deeply suspicious of the process by which the Police Department seeks to hold its officers accountable on those occasions where they engage in misconduct. It is not sufficient for an arbitrator to say: trust me. Absolutely no good can come from a situation where the disciplinary process refuses to acknowledge this reality.”

The FOP is no stranger to legal battles with the city, most recently waging a heated opposition to Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for city employees in fall 2021. Ultimately, an arbitrator upheld the city’s requirement.

The Chicago Police Board has for more than six decades been the arbiter of the most serious CPD misconduct cases, ones in which the department seeks at least a yearlong suspension or an officer’s firing.

After an officer is served with administrative charges, he or she faces an evidentiary hearing, a trial-like procedure that features witness testimony and evidence presented. The hearings are video recorded, and the footage and transcripts are later reviewed and debated by the nine-person police board. After deliberations, the board will announce its findings and decision at its monthly meeting.

Officers who the board votes to fire or suspend from the CPD can appeal the board’s decision in Cook County Circuit Court.

The proposed contract stipulates that five arbitrators would be selected each year to oversee and decide disciplinary cases if officers decline the police board. Those same five arbitrators would also handle less serious misconduct cases — those in which the sought suspension is 30 days or less — and render decisions in those cases the same day that they’re heard.

In August, shortly after Benn’s original ruling was handed down, the FOP tried to move 22 pending cases from the police board’s docket to a third-party. However, attorneys for the city and CPD were quick to note Benn’s ruling was not binding and the board later shot down the union’s effort.

But Benn on Monday issued a final opinion, meaning that if the city and FOP cannot agree on the disciplinary process after that, the dispute could end up in court. Bruno, the labor expert, said the mayor’s strategy to decouple the contract into two votes is more about sending a message on the issue on misconduct proceedings because it is such an “exceptionally charged, important topic.”

“In this case, the mayor wants City Council to be on record … to take a very clear and enforceable position on both elements of the contract,” Bruno said. “It’d be City Council saying, ‘We’re not going to abide by what the arbitrator has ruled, and we don’t feel beholden to it,’ and they go back to bargaining.”