A federal appeals panel has turned aside an effort by a labor union representing Cook County employees to shield its union grievance hearings from being observed by monitors appointed by a federal judge to keep tabs on Cook County government hiring and employment practices.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the ruling on Aug. 12. In the decision, the judges determined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 700 had no ability under the law to appeal a judge’s order opening certain grievance proceedings to the court-appointed monitors. The judges essentially ruled the union chose the wrong path to involve itself in the matter between the federal court and the office of the Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court.
The decision was written by Seventh Circuit Judge Amy C. Barrett. Circuit judges Daniel A. Manion and David F. Hamilton concurred.
Michael Shakman
| Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman
The decision stems from an order issued by a federal magistrate judge in 2018.
Since the 1970s, federal judges in Chicago have overseen hiring practices in many of Cook County’s various government offices, as well as several Illinois state agencies and offices. The judges have been involved under a series of orders issued in the case known as Shakman et. al. v Democratic Organization of Cook County et. al.
Decrees issued under that case have prohibited the affected government agencies from making most hires based on political considerations, under a system commonly known as patronage.
Judges have since empowered various lawyers, known as Special Masters, to review government hiring decisions, and sit in on employment-related meetings, hearings and proceedings, to ensure the so-called Shakman decrees are being followed.
In 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier moved to appoint a special master to monitor hiring decisions and practices within the office of Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown.
As part of that monitoring process, the special master asked the judge to order Brown to let monitors sit in on employee grievance proceedings. According to the appellate decision, the special master sought such access “to observe the conduct of the Clerk’s office managers” at the hearings and “to determine whether the Clerk was continuing to favor political allies in employment decisions.”
That request from the special master drew an objection from Teamsters Local 700, which the appellate judges said “didn’t appreciate the scrutiny.” The union “sent the special master a cease-and-desist letter purporting to bar her from the room.”
The plaintiffs in the case, led by Chicago attorney Michael Shakman, among other members of the plaintiffs’ class, then took the matter to Judge Schenkier, seeking an order to clarify that the original order granted the special master access to the grievance hearings.
The judge agreed, and the union then appealed.
The Seventh Circuit panel, however, said Local 700 had no ability to appeal Schenkier’s ruling. The judges said the union is not, at this point, a party to the Shakman case against Brown’s office.
The union argued it should have standing to appeal, because the special master’s presence in the grievance proceedings will affect the union.
The appellate judges disagreed.
The union could have sought to intervene as a third party in the action, they said. Instead Local 700 “simply filed a memorandum in opposition” to the special master’s request for a clarifying order from Judge Schenkier, the judges said, which was legally insufficient to allow the union to appeal.
Local 700 has been represented in the action by attorney Nicole Chaney, who serves as the union local’s chief legal counsel.
The Shakman plaintiffs have been represented by attorney Brian Hays, and others with the firm of Locke Lord LLP, of Chicago, as well as by Shakman and his firm, Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman LLP, of Chicago.