After working 16 months without a contract, McHenry County correctional officers plan to turn up the heat Tuesday on county officials by taking their case public.
Representatives of the 90 correctional officers say they plan to walk a picket line outside the McHenry County Government Center to air their gripes about the slow-moving contract talks.
Robert Rader, a correctional officer and local Fraternal Order of Police spokesman, said the union decided to picket Tuesday to inform other county employees and the public about the negotiations. He said he expects civilian members of the sheriff’s department, who also have no contract, to join the protest.
The McHenry County Board last month approved a four-year contract with annual 4 percent raises for the county’s 70 patrol officers, and Rader said the correctional officers want a similar deal.
“We’ve been second-class citizens in the department for a long time,” Rader said. “We want to draw closer to the patrol officers” in terms of pay and benefits.
“In the 16 months since our contract expired, the county negotiator has spent four hours with us,” he said. “I don’t know if you can call that good-faith bargaining. Morale is poor.”
Assistant County Administrator Roy Witherow, who is negotiating the economic issues of the contract for the county along with attorney Bruce Mackey, said the county is trying to be fair with the correctional officers. He also said there is a good reason he and Mackey have spent only a few hours negotiating.
“We were not called to the table until early December,” Witherow said. “Until then, the discussions were over operational issues, which are under the purview of the sheriff. And the Christmas and New Year’s holidays interrupted things. So I think Bob’s comment is a little unfair.”
Tensions have been high for several months. Last fall, the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board against the county and Sheriff Keith Nygren. A hearing is pending.
Nygren noted that the picketing is taking place one week before the Republican primary election, which he said indicates it is “purely political.”
Nygren, whom Republican party leaders appointed to the job last spring, is being challenged in the election by Tom Sanders, a sheriff’s department sergeant and a Spring Grove village trustee.
To help settle the contract, a federal mediator has been called in to handle negotiations.
“They were in one room and we were in another,” Rader said. “The mediator was our go-between. We never spoke directly.”
