Kane court security arbitration request debated

Lawyers argued Wednesday whether Kane County court security officers are “essential services” workers entitled to arbitration in negotiating a labor contract with the county and the Kane County Sheriff’s Department.

Kane County Judge Thomas Mueller said he would issue a written opinion on the matter, but did not specify when.

The Policemen’s Benefit Labor Committee — the group representing the officers — brought the action in June 2010. It wants Mueller to mandate the county enter arbitration with the workers. Their contract expired in 2008. According to the suit, the workers were offered no raises, but a $500 stipend. The union contends there is money in a surplus fund that could pay for raises.

The law defines an “essential services employee” as those “performing functions so essential that the interruption or termination of the function will constitute a clear and present danger to the health and safety of the persons in the affected community,” including police officers and firefighters. But it specifically exempts court security workers, as that job is defined in the Illinois Counties Code, according to the county’s attorney, Lawrence Weiner.

But the union’s attorney argued that the bargaining unit, which was formed in 1995, was formed before the labor law was enacted and the counties code amended, that an attorney general opinion required security workers to be sworn peace officers, and that it has been the practice of the sheriff’s office since 1995 to treat the security workers as if they are not entitled to strike. Instead, their contracts called for arbitration, just like members of the unions for the sheriff’s patrol officers, sergeants and corrections officers.

“Either the sheriff’s office hasn’t properly defined the roles of their (security) officers, or it has totally allowed them to perform the tasks of peace officers as well as corrections officers,” argued union attorney Tim O’Neil.

Weiner said that since state law excludes court security workers, “the court security workers have a perfect right to strike” — and that they definitely had the right to do so once their contract, which prohibited striking, expired.

The security workers carry guns. They oversee transport of jail inmates through the court facilities, take people into custody at the order of a judge, oversee inmates in holding cells in the court buildings and screen court visitors.