IBEW Local 1547 (Fairbanks AK) wins arbitration for health care and leave for Fairbanks City employees

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

City ordered to pay contracts
By TOM MORAN
Staff Writer

Saturday, October 02, 2004 - An arbitrator has ordered Fairbanks city officials to pay for portions of a city contract they elected not to fund in the 2004 city budget.

In a Sept. 10 decision, arbitrator Robert Landau ruled in favor of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547--which represents white-collar city employees--in three different grievances, mostly stemming from the council's decision to balance this year's budget by not fully funding leave and health care provisions in employee contracts. Landau ruled that the council violated the IBEW contract by not fully funding it.

"They can't agree to fund it and then go back and say 'No, we're not going to fund it now,'" said IBEW Assistant Business Manager John Giuchici.

Mayor Steve Thompson said city council members have discussed the ruling and are awaiting more information on the potential financial impact of restoring the funding. He said he didn't know whether the arbitrator's finding would make them more likely to consider it.

"That's going to depend on what the council's going to think about the hard numbers we have to look at," he said.

Giuchici said if the city refuses to fund the contracts it will mean a lawsuit from the union, which represents about 30 city workers.

"The contract says that we've agreed that if we cannot resolve issues, then we go to binding arbitration," he said. "And If they refuse to abide by it, we will be going to court."

The council's budget vote came after Thompson proposed making up for a city deficit of around $1.5 million partly by capping city contributions to employee health plans at $750 a year, and by eliminating "longevity" or "bonus" leave, which is time awarded to employees on top of their leave time that grows with their length of service. The proposal drew vehement objections from the unions, and the council voted in December to fund the contracts for the first three months of 2004 to search for other ways to cut spending. None were forthcoming.

Three of the four city unions have since taken action over the decision. The local chapter of the Public Safety Employees Association, which represents the police department, filed a pair of unfair labor practices complaints and is continuing to pursue a lawsuit filed late last year that charges the city with breaking their contract through a separate decision made last August. While the suit doesn't directly deal with the 2004 budget cuts, PSEA executive director and general counsel Jim Gasper said he believes a ruling in the union's favor on that issue would bear on the other matters as well.

"Based on the principles of law that are considered in this suit, we'll be able to extrapolate a result from that," he said.

The Fairbanks Fire Fighters Association filed an unfair labor practice complaint as well as several grievances--over the health care, leave time, and the city's decision not to fund firefighter clothing or training allowances. Those were dropped after the union was informed the city wouldn't pay for them even if an arbitrator ruled in the union's favor, according to FFFA business agent Steve Sundborg. The FFFA now plans to bring up the same matters in a lawsuit.

Most of what would be settled in a lawsuit is the question of whether the council is legally entitled to not fund parts of a negotiated contract. Previous court decisions have indicated that such a move is allowed, but Sundborg said the FFFA is seeking a concrete indication of how far the city can go.

"We wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get all the money the city owed us out of this lawsuit," he said. "But even if we don't get funded all the way, we would like the courts to draw a line in the sand as to the effect nonfunding has had."

The IBEW arbitrator ruled that the city should fund health care for the union at $888 a month this year, restore the leave time, and also give the employees retroactive payments and leave time to make up for their losses.

Thompson has estimated that completely restoring all of the cuts to the IBEW and other contracts would cost the city about $660,000 a year. But with the city's annual payments on its huge debt to the state retirement system rising at more than $300,000 a year, he said he doesn't know whether the city can afford to reverse the cut--even with what is expected to be a $1 million city surplus this year due to a big construction season.

"This is what we have to look at," Thompson said. "We might be able to come up with a fix for one year, but the council is going to be having to look at the long-range effects."

Reporter Tom Moran can be reached at tmoran@newsminer.com or 459-7590.