Chicago Police Overtime Lawsuit Ends in $1M Settlement

The Windy City has reached a settlement with a group of Chicago Police Department law enforcement officers who allege they failed to receive appropriate compensation for their overtime work.

In the Chicago police overtime lawsuit, the city of Chicago has agreed to pay nearly $1 million to resolve claims of violations of federal and state wage laws.

A total of $931,152 was agreed upon by the city of Chicago to settle claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the state Illinois Minimum Wage Law.

The group of police officers says that their union, the Fraternal Order of Police, reached an agreement to pay police officers higher wages as well as retroactive pay.

However, the officers say the city didn’t apply the new pay rates retroactively to the overtime that was earned, and this allegedly violated the state and federal laws.

The settlement class in the Chicago police overtime lawsuit consists of all officers who rank below sergeant who did not receive retroactive pay increases for overtime they earned during 2012 and 2013.

A total of 3,463 officers is included in the settlement class.

The claim was originally filed in December of last year. Plaintiffs stated that the city and the union had reached an agreement that pay increases would be applied retroactively.

That agreement was to be memorialized in the current collective bargaining agreement for the union that was ratified in November 2014.

The lead negotiator for the city as well as the president of the union both signed a letter that said pay raises would be retroactively applied dating back to 2012 but that overtime pay based on those increases would not apply retroactively.

But the plaintiffs cited a provision found in the Code of Federal Regulations that specifically says retroactive pay is required to be applied to overtime worked, “no matter what the agreement of the parties may be.”

“The agreement between the defendant and the Fraternal Order of Police to exclude all overtime pay from the retroactive wage increase is illegal and contrary to law,” the Chicago police overtime lawsuit reads.

The complaint also alleges that state labor laws were violated by the city – in particular, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law.

Plaintiffs alleged the city knew or should have known about its obligations under the IMWL yet still tried to circumvent its requirements, making the resulting violations willful.

City Faces More than One Chicago Police Overtime Lawsuit

The city is simultaneously facing another employment rights lawsuit over allegations that Chicago Police Department has not properly kept track of the overtime earned by police officers.

Plaintiffs in that action claim the city is holding on to approximately $135 million in unpaid overtime wages.

The Chicago Police Department has been accused of other violations of employment law in recent years.

In February of this year, the city approved a settlement in the amount of $3.1 million to resolve claims that the Chicago Police Department engaged in discrimination against foreign-born job applicants by requiring new recruits to have been in the U.S. for a minimum of 10 years.

Another labor rights lawsuit was tossed last December that alleged Chicago police officers were not fairly compensated for their off-the-clock time they spent checking their BlackBerry devices issued by their employer.

The Chicago Police Overtime Lawsuit is Bartlett v. City of Chicago, Case No. 1:15-cv-11899, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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