Public works union alleges Mayor Chris Clark bucking contract negotiations

Lemare Young has worked for Harvey’s water department for over 18 years, 12 years as a part-time employee and six full-time. The job is frenetic. Sometimes, the work includes a water meter inspection. Or it’s awaking in the wee hours of the morning to fix water main breaks. 

“Some days, your body doesn’t want to go out in zero below weather while water shoots up in the street,” Young said. If police need to search an abandoned home, he revealed, laborers need to shut off the property’s water supply so officers can safely do so. 

He loves his job. But it’s “emotionally draining trying to deal with the administrative part of it,” Young told the HWH. That includes bargaining for a new contract. Young is president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 2404, the union representing about 30 public works and clerical employees in Harvey. 

After months of failed negotiations, according to the union, it filed a complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board earlier this month. 

Their contract expired in April 2016. The city offered a new contract in August 2022, according to Young, who didn’t indicate all of what the city offered, but said “they were trying to take a lot from us,” allegedly including cutting lunch time in half.

The last meeting with city officials was November 2022, which Mayor Chris Clark attended, according to Young. The next meeting was to be the following month and March 2023. But the city abruptly cancelled.

“The employees feel like they are overlooked. They’re not cared about by the mayor,” Young told the HWH. “They feel like it’s no appreciation.” 

AFSCME Local 2404 endorsed Clark’s 2019 election bid. He had support from “local and council 31” but it withheld its endorsement in 2023 because of “the way he [the mayor] treated us the first four years he was in office,” Young continued. 

Young spoke during public comment of the June 12 City Council meeting, joined by a sea of green shirts who sat silently during the meeting. “The Harvey workforce is very low paid, even in comparison to other communities that face tough budget issues,” which is why the city offers generous sick time and paid time off—to make up for low wages, according to Young. “It’s embarrassing when you go to Dixmoor, you feed them water, and they[‘re] making more than us,” he complained.

Young told the HWH that the mayor’s office hired seasonal workers and overlooked many union staff, frustrating union workers. 

In 2021, Williams told the council that the city struggled to find workers while alderpersons discussed a measure to outsource building code inspections to private company SafeBuilt. Current open employment opportunities in the public works department include seasonal, part-time, and full-time work.

In response to Young’s comments at the meeting, Clark acknowledged the public workers’ presence to residents’ applause.

“I just want the people to see, and I also want the people to know, that negotiations and appreciations are not always the same thing,” Clark said.