Fire Department, Inc.
North Riverside, Illinois is a village just west of Chicago with a thriving mall that has provided outsized revenue to its population of less than 7,000 residents since its opening in 1974. This picture of suburban affluence was shattered in 2008, when the housing crash, the resulting economic recession, and the concurrent rise of e-commerce decimated brick and mortar store profits, and thus the village's sales tax revenue.
The Village finds itself more deeply entrenched in financial woes each year, and by 2013 is massively in debt to their firefighters' pension fund. The newly-elected Mayor, comes up with a plan to eliminate the pension plans by privatizing the entire union fire department. There's only one problem: the firefighters say no.
In response, the Mayor terminates them all ? illegally. What ensues is a half decade long legal battle that threatens to upend labor laws not only in Illinois, but the entire country.?
