Exempts to Quit?

Hooray!!!! Oh wait, it's the Fire side:

• Dozens of Chicago Fire Department brass have warned that they’re prepared to resign their exempt positions and return to the rank-and-file in a squabble over pay and benefits — creating uncertainty over how the city would fill such a leadership vacuum.
  
  The fire officials are seeking pension changes, expanded health insurance benefits and pay raises — and have been unable to persuade Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago to sweeten the pot for them.
  
  But city officials say that would require a change in the state pension code.

Rahm doesn't want to drain the Firefighters Pension? Imagine that. So why doesn't the Police Pension try this to save money?

• In addition, the state pension code doesn’t allow exempt fire officers to earn pension benefits based on their current salary. Instead, their pension benefits are based on the lower salary of their most recent union-covered job.

The Pension should actually base pension on the last earned rank, meaning that everyone on that recently published "merit" list would be shit out of luck since since they were given an inflated pension based on political considerations, heavy relatives, or sex.