Labor – Arbitration – Staffing – Police

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Where an arbitrator concluded that a union’s grievance, concerning a town’s revision of minimum staffing requirements for its police department so as to reduce the need for overtime, was not arbitrable because shift staffing decisions are the town’s prerogative and cannot be bargained away, the award should be confirmed based on the union’s inability to demonstrate that the award is invalid under G.L.c. 150, section11.

“That statute states that an award shall be vacated only if procured by corruption or bias, if the arbitrator exceeded her powers, or if she ‘rendered an award requiring a person to commit an act or engage in conduct prohibited by law.’ The [Saugus Police Patrol Officers] Union argues that the award here must be set aside based on this last grounds because ‘it permits to Town to commit an unlawful act — allowing the Town to defend a minimum manning provision in a collective bargaining agreement during the middle of a fiscal year.’ In this Court’s view, that is simply another way of saying that the arbitrator committed an error of law because she did not grant the Union’s request to require the Town to adhere to the minimum staffing requirements (something that the arbitrator herself believed that it was unlawful for her to order). This is not what G.L.c. 150C section11 meant when it stated that an arbitrator could not compel an illegal act, and does not support the judicial intrusion into the arbitral process that the Union seeks.

“In somewhat of an aboutface, the Union argues in the alternative that the arbitrator had no jurisdiction to hear the matter because the collective bargaining agreement upon which the Union itself relied in bringing a grievance was of no legal effect. In support of its position, the Union cites Boston Housing Authority v. National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, Local 3, 458 Mass. 155 (2010), which held that so-called ‘evergreen clauses’ in lapsed collective bargaining agreements could not extend the terms of those agreements beyond three years. …

“Certainly, if the arbitrator in the instant case had made an award in the Union’s favor, the Town could rely on the BHA decision in seeking to have such an award vacated. Where the Union initiated the grievance in the first place on the grounds that the Town had violated the agreement, it makes no sense for it to use the BHA case in its favor in order to overturn an award which essentially reached the same result which would have obtained if the arbitrator had specifically found that no agreement was in effect. Indeed, G.L.c. 150C section11 itself would seem to preclude this: one may apply to have an award vacated if no arbitration agreement exists, provided that the applicant raised an objection to participating in the arbitration hearing at the time. …”

Saugus Police Patrol Officers Union v. Town of Saugus (Lawyers Weekly No. 12-133-11) (4 pages) (Sanders, J.) (Suffolk Superior Court) (Civil Action No. 10-0974) (July 14, 2011).