By Jake Sheridan
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Chicago’s rank-and-file firefighters union has all but landed a long-sought collective bargaining agreement with the city.
The Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2 and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration reached a tentative agreement that, if confirmed, will end four years of negotiations, Johnson and Local 2 President Pat Cleary said Tuesday.
| SPECIAL REPORT: What Firefighters Want in 2025
The deal must still be approved by both the union’s members and the City Council, a process that could take a month, Cleary said. But if finalized, the contract would trigger the spending of hundreds of millions in retroactive pay that city officials say they had already planned for in this year’s budget.
“Until all of that’s done, it’s not done,” Cleary said. “I don’t want to comment until it’s done. I don’t want to ruin anything.”
The union president, who has loudly criticized the mayor for failing to land the deal —after Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, also went years without reaching one — said the pay raises included in the agreement were broadly in line with the 5% bumps given to the Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7, the city’s rank-and-file police union.
Cleary said the deal does not lower staffing requirements on fire trucks, a change Lightfoot explored to reduce spending and ramp up the city’s ambulatory services. He added that he passed a bill in Springfield this spring to force the city to spend a portion of its ambulance revenue on its ambulance fleet.
But the union president carefully avoided praising the tentative deal first reported Tuesday by Crain’s Chicago Business, instead promising to speak about it once it is made official.
“If my membership disapproves of it, we go back to negotiation,” Cleary said. “It’s not done yet until we jump those last hurdles.”
He later described the deal as “a good contract” for firefighters, but criticized the long-running process.
Johnson similarly noted the deal’s tentative nature. There are “still some steps,” he said.
“We have worked hard to get this deal done,” he said during an unrelated Tuesday news conference. “ This one was important to me. I’m glad that we are moving forward.”
The mayor added that his administration has in the last two years budgeted for the back pay included in the contract. There will be “no disruption in our first responders’ pay,” he said.
©2025 Chicago Tribune.
Visit chicagotribune.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
