John Catanzara served as a police officer with the Chicago Police Department from January 1995 until his resignation on November 16, 2021. Prior to his election as president of Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #7 in May 2020, Catanzara had been investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) and Bureau of Internal Affairs (BIA) for several allegations of misconduct, some of which Catanzara would later claim was protected union activity. After Catanzara’s elevation to union president, he feuded publicly and privately with then-mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot.
In 2018, COPA notified Catanzara that a complaint had been filed, alleging that he had, between 2016 and 2018, “made a statement on Facebook that was biased against Muslims by stating ‘savages they all deserve a bullet,’ asserted that the mayor had lied about negotiating financial terms, and attempted to influence others’ actions about a nonpolice matter by referencing his official position as a Chicago Police Officer.” He’d also publicly criticized the mayor about the handling of the summer 2020 riots, and made various other obscene Facebook posts, sometimes directed at members of the public. In January 2021, he publicly defended the January 6th rioters to the press. This gave rise to the events that formed the basis of the Union’s charges.
The police superintendent issued Catanzara a 30-day suspension in late January 2021. The parties’ collective bargaining agreement states that it is the current and past practice for the superintendent to issue officers a 30-day suspension when initiating separation proceedings against the officer. The City also filed charges against Catanzara before the police board seeking his separation. The charges included the allegations from both the COPA and BIA cases, consolidating them for purposes of the police board proceeding.
At the separation proceedings, Catanzara declared the hearing to be a sham and announced his intent to resign his employment the following morning. Following Catanzara’s announcement, the mayor made public comments to the news media. She stated that Catanzara had “ruined his own career with bombastic and offensive rhetoric, that he had disgraced the Department, and that she believed the case against him was strong.”
The Union brought an unfair labor practice charge alleging that the City violated the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act (ILPRA) by suspending and initiating charges against Catanzara in retaliation for his protected, concerted activity and by issuing a resolution calling for his resignation as Union president and asking the BIA to open an investigation into his statements related to January 6 insurrection if he refused to resign.
The ALJ conducted a dual motive analysis related to the Union’s charges of retaliation. An employer violates IL-PRA where (1) an employee is engaged in protected, concerted activity; (2) the employer knows of it; (3) adverse action is taken against the employee; and (4) the protected, concerted activity was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse action. If the union establishes these elements, then the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate that it would have taken the adverse action anyway for legitimate business reasons – a proper motive.
The ALJ found that the Union established a prima facie case for retaliation, “but determined that the matter involved dual motives, concluding that the City would have taken the same action against Catanzara in the absence of his participation in protected, concerted activities, the egregiousness of the content and nature of Catanzara’s social media statements, the timeline of the COPA decision-making process, and the absence of disparate treatment supported the conclusion that the City would have suspended Catanzara and initiated discharge proceedings against him notwithstanding Catanzara’s protected, concerted activities.” Thus, the City did not violate ILPRA by suspending and initiating charges against Catanzara.
The resolution calling for Catanzara’s resignation, however, did violate ILPRA, as the City Council’s conduct “had a reasonable tendency to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the selection of their representative.” The ALJ pointed specifically to the Council’s call to employees to oust a union representative and “implicitly threatening to diminish Catanzara’s effectiveness as Union president.”
Finally, the ALJ found the allegations related to constructive discharge unsuccessful, as Catanzara’s working conditions were not “so difficult or unpleasant as to force him to resign,” nor imposed “because of his union activity or other protected, concerted activity.”
The Illinois Labor Relations Board accepted the findings of the ALJ. With respect to the dual motive analysis, the Board dismissed the exceptions of the Union and held that “the Union’s arguments in support of these exceptions fail to undermine the ALJ’s determinations which were well-reasoned and supported by the evidence.” The Board found that the Union “failed to undermine the ALJ’s findings regarding the constructive discharge allegations,” as the Union could not proffer evidence which “demonstrated that the City conditioned Catanzara’s employment on relinquishing his rights under ILPRA.” Accordingly, although the Board agreed that the City Council’s calls for Catanzara’s resignation unlawfully interfered with Union business, his discipline did not violate ILPRA – even though some of his alleged misconduct involved protected, concerted activity.
Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #7, and City of Chicago, 40 PERI ¶ 78 (Ill. Labor Rel. Bd., 2024).