Chicago City Council | Workforce Development Committee | Fair Workweek Emails

Dear Chairwoman Sadlowski Garza and Staffpersons of the Committee on Workforce Development,

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

All emails and attachments sent or received by the Committee Chairpersons, Members, or Staff during the period 1/1/2017–12/31/2021 that contain any of the following phrases: "fair workweek", "fair work week" or "fair scheduling". Since this period spans multiple terms of the Council, please be sure to include messages sent or received by the following email addresses: Ward10@cityofchicago.org, Ward40@cityofchicago.org, Ward44@cityofchicago.org, Ward45@cityofchicago.org, and Frank.Pucci@cityofchicago.org.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Peter Fugiel

Good morning,

Thank you for providing emails from the most recent term and directing me to the FOIA office for earlier emails. Please note that I requested a copy of the attachments associated with these emails. I am particularly interested in attachments that are not available on the Legistar site, e.g. written testimony or letters from stakeholders seeking changes or clarifications of the Fair Workweek Ordinance.

In August 2019, I requested a copy of all written testimony submitted to the Committee or Chairwoman, but I'm not sure I received all the responsive records. At the beginning of the June 10, 2019 Committee meeting, the Chairwoman mentioned receiving testimony from the following organizations: Action Now, AFSCME, Arise Chicago, Center for Law and Social Policy, Center for Popular Democracy, Chicago Foundation for Women, Chicago Workers Collaborative, Fair Workweek Initiative, Fight for $15, Illinois Action for Children, Jobs with Justice, National Employment Law Project, National Women's Law Center, Raise the Floor Alliance, Restaurant Opportunity Center, SEIU, Sierra Club, Swedish Covenant Hospital, and Women Employed. Yet I don't see any record of testimony from these organizations in what Mr. Pucci shared with me previously or what you provided last week.

I understand that the end of the term is fast approaching. Still I would appreciate if you could take a second look for records responsive to my request, specifically testimony from any of the organizations listed above.

Thank you for your assistance,

Peter Fugiel
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Thank you, John, for that information and for your continued assistance searching electronic records. I emailed the FOIA@cityofchicago.org address to request records from the previous term, but received an error message (see forwarded email below). I will try with the CouncilCommitteeFOIA@cityofchicago.org address instead.

–Peter Fugiel

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@mx0a-00007602.pphosted.com>
Date: Mon, May 8, 2023 at 10:32 AM
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
To: <pf278@scarletmail.rutgers.edu>

The original message was received at Mon, 8 May 2023 14:28:29 GMT
from m0289405.ppops.net [127.0.0.1]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<FOIA@cityofchicago.org>
(reason: 550 5.4.1 Recipient address rejected: Access denied. AS(201806281) [BL0GCC02FT014.eop-gcc02.prod.protection.outlook.com 2023-05-08T14:28:29.960Z 08DB4FAF46353849])

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to cityofchicago-org.mail.protection.outlook.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 5.4.1 Recipient address rejected: Access denied. AS(201806281) [BL0GCC02FT014.eop-gcc02.prod.protection.outlook.com 2023-05-08T14:28:29.960Z 08DB4FAF46353849]
550 5.1.1 <FOIA@cityofchicago.org>... User unknown
<<< 503 5.5.2 Need rcpt command [BL0GCC02FT014.eop-gcc02.prod.protection.outlook.com 2023-05-08T14:28:29.960Z 08DB4FAF46353849]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter Fugiel <peter.fugiel@rutgers.edu>
To: FOIA@cityofchicago.org
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Mon, 8 May 2023 10:28:16 -0400
Subject: Request for City Council emails and documents mentioning fair workweek
Dear FOIA Officer,

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

All emails and attachments sent or received by City Council Members or Staff during the period 1/1/2017–5/19/2019 that contain any of the phrases "fair workweek", "fair work week" or "fair scheduling". Please be sure to include responsive records sent or received by the email addresses listed below:
Ward01@cityofchicago.org
Ward04@cityofchicago.org
Ward05@cityofchicago.org
Ward06@cityofchicago.org
Ward08@cityofchicago.org
Ward10@cityofchicago.org
Ward12@cityofchicago.org
Ward15@cityofchicago.org
Ward16@cityofchicago.org
Ward19@cityofchicago.org
Ward21@cityofchicago.org
Ward22@cityofchicago.org
Ward23@cityofchicago.org
Ward25@cityofchicago.org
Ward28@cityofchicago.org
Ward29@cityofchicago.org
Ward31@cityofchicago.org
Ward32@cityofchicago.org
Ward33@cityofchicago.org
Ward34@cityofchicago.org
Ward35@cityofchicago.org
Ward36@cityofchicago.org
Ward37@cityofchicago.org
Ward38@cityofchicago.org
Ward40@cityofchicago.org
Ward44@cityofchicago.org
Ward45@cityofchicago.org
Ward46@cityofchicago.org
Ward48@cityofchicago.org
Ward49@cityofchicago.org
Ward50@cityofchicago.org
David.Moore@cityofchicago.org
Anne.Emerson@cityofchicago.org

This request is being made for non-commercial, research purposes. The requested documents will be made available to the general public.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer that the request be filled electronically, if possible, by email attachment.

Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Peter Fugiel

Dear Margaret Dever,

Thank you for your initial response to this request. I recognize the need to balance the burden of fulfilling the request and the public interest in the information. While the latter side of the ledger is difficult to estimate as precisely as you have the former, I would note that the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance represents the most expansive labor standard of its kind. Along with a handful of other cities and one state, Chicago has established the most significant new rights and protections on working time since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. My research seeks to understand the origins and development of fair workweek laws, a project in which the National Science Foundation found sufficient merit to award me a competitive research fellowship (#2203815).

Notwithstanding the considerable public interest in this information, I am willing to narrow my request to the period 1/1/2018–12/31/2019 and only the following email accounts: Susan.Sadlowski-Garza@cityofchicago.org, Patrick.OConnor@cityofchicago.org, Carlos.Ramirez-Rosa@cityofchicago.org, Tom.Tunney@cityofchicago.org, Ward45@cityofchicago.org. I would still like a copy, preferably in electronic format, of all emails and attachments sent or received by the Committee Chairpersons or select Members during the specified period that contain either of the phrases "fair workweek" or "fair scheduling."

Please note that I submitted a separate FOIA request on May 9, 2023 for related records, namely: "All written or recorded comments or testimony received by the City Council Committee on Workforce Development (formerly known as the Workforce Development and Audit Committee) regarding the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance (record numbers O2017-4947, O2018-5089, O2019-3928, O2020-2370)." In the event that there are records responsive to both requests (e.g. written testimony sent as an email attachment to the Committee Chair), you may omit these records from the first collection or include them in both, whichever would reduce the burden on your office.

I appreciate your continued assistance and look forward to your response to this narrowed request.

Sincerely,

Peter Fugiel
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Rutgers School of Management & Labor Relations

Good afternoon Margaret Dever,

Thank you for providing these records and a table summarizing the redactions. I recognize the need to protect private information from disclosure. However, I object to the redaction of witness names under section 7(1)(c) of the Illinois FOIA. The statute requires that disclosure of this information "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, unless the disclosure is consented to in writing by the individual subjects of the information." It is not at all clear to me that this exemption applies to lobbyists or individuals testifying to a legislative body about their business or working conditions.

The individuals whose names were redacted all participated, presumably voluntarily, in a meeting of the Fair Workweek Working Group convened by Chairman O'Connor and other members of the Workforce Committee. Although I am not a lawyer, my understanding is that the meetings of this Working Group should have been public under the Illinois Open Meetings Act. If they were public meetings, then disclosing the names of individual participants cannot be an invasion of personal privacy.

Even if the Working Group meetings were closed or not subject to the Open Meetings Act, many of the participants wrote their names and contact information on a sign-in sheet, indicating their consent to disclose their identities to the Committee members and staff. I suspect that some of these same individuals wrote their names on witness slips in order to testify on this issue at later (indisputably public) meetings of the full Committee. These documents would seem to waive the right to privacy in connection with the named individuals' testimony for or against the Fair Workweek proposal.

Finally, even if we grant that some of the individuals did not give written consent to have their names disclosed, the claimed exemption was not applied in a consistent way across the responsive records. For example, an email from Zach Koutsky discloses his full name, employer, job title, and email address. But his name is redacted from the Working Group notes in which he clearly participated (as demonstrated by his citation of a scholarly article on unpredictable scheduling he previously shared via email). If there is a legitimate reason for disclosing Mr. Koutsky's name and email in one record and redacting it in another, I would appreciate if it were made clear to me.

I hope that you will resend the responsive records with the names of all individuals participating in meetings of the Fair Workweek Working Group. Otherwise I will appeal the redaction of these names with Public Access Counselor Leah Bartelt.

Sincerely,
Peter Fugiel

Dear Public Access Counselor Bartelt:

I am writing to appeal the redaction of names from records I requested under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The redacted names were recorded on sign-in sheets and notes prepared by staff for the Committee on Workforce Development of the City of Chicago in connection with the Fair Workweek Working Group convened by former Committee Chairman O'Connor in 2018–19. In the attached response letter, Council Committee FOIA officer Margaret Dever notes that "witness names were redacted pursuant to 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(c)." However, Ms. Dever has not demonstrated that disclosing these names would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" as required for the 7(1)(c) exemption.

The "witnesses" whose names were redacted all participated, presumably voluntarily, in meetings of the Fair Workweek Working Group—meetings at which as many as five members of the Committee on Workforce Development, whose names were not redacted, were also present. The notes indicate that many if not most of the unnamed participants were lobbyists or employees of corporations, unions, trade associations, or advocacy organizations. The remarks recorded in these notes concern business operations and scheduling practices of the participants' respective industries or employers, their opinions regarding fair workweek legislation, and speculation about how this legislation might affect them. Disclosing their names in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act is no more an invasion of their personal privacy than the disclosure requirements of the Lobbyist Registration Act.

It is clear from the title of the Fair Workweek Working Group and the objectives set for it by Chairman O'Connor (see p. 23 of Attachment IV) that participants in these meetings were asked to speak not about their personal lives, but their business or professional experience on a matter of public concern. The public has a right to know who testified and lobbied before the legislative body that passed the most expansive working time regulations since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. My assessment of the public interest in this information is informed by my expertise as a PhD researcher who specializes in labor standards and scheduling practices. I have requested these records as part of an academic study in which the National Science Foundation found sufficient merit to award me a competitive Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (#2203815).

Given the dubious privacy rights and compelling public interest at stake, I ask that you instruct Ms. Dever to disclose the names and job titles of all participants in the Fair Workweek Working Group. The requested documents will be made available to the general public through the Muck Rock website and the Qualitative Data Repository housed at Syracuse University. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Peter Fugiel
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Dear Chelsey Fenton,

Please find attached a formal letter with my requests and responses from the Chicago City Council staff. I look forward to a review of the partial denials of my requests.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter,

Peter Fugiel
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Dear Assistant Attorney General Goodman:

Please see attached my rebuttal of the Council Committee FOIA Officer's reasons for denying my request. I include references to the responsive records already provided in a set of four email attachments (I-IV). I also refer to a recording of the Workforce Committee meeting on April 4, 2019, which I would be happy to share with you if needed. I am sending this message through the MuckRock website to ensure that it is accessible to the general public. I will send a separate email to the Council Committee FOIA Office with a copy of my rebuttal.

Thank you for your continued attention to this matter,
Peter Fugiel