Teamsters, Local 589
And
City of
Interest Arbitration
Arbitrator: Sandra Smith Gangle
Date Issued:
Arbitrator: Gangle; Sandra Smith
Case #: 16226-I-02-00377
Employer:
City of
Date Issued:
THE
COMMISSION
BEFORE SANDRA SMITH GANGLE, ARBITRATOR
In the Matter of the Interest
Arbitration )
between )
)
CITY OF
)
Public Employer, )
)
)
OPINION AND AWARD
and )
)
TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 589 )
)
Bargaining Representative. )
)
__________________________________________)
Hearing Conducted:
Representing the Employer: Michael
and Bette Meglemre
Representing the
DAVIES,
ROBERTS & REID
Arbitration
and Mediation
Arbitrator: Sandra
Smith Gangle, J.D.
*SANDRA
SMITH GANGLE, P.C.
Date of Decision:
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
SECTION PAGE
I . BACKGROUND............................................................................................3
II. RELEVANT STATUTORY
PROVISIONS.................................................5
III. STATEMENT OF
FACTS.............................................................................7
IV. RELEVANT CRITERIA FOR
AWARD..................... ...............................11
V. DETERMINING THE
COMPARABLE JURISDICTIONS.....................13
VI . THE
ISSUES.................................................................................................19
VII. WAGES...........................................................................................................20
VIII. CALLBACK....................................................................................................24
IX. DETECTIVE
PREMIUM...............................................................................26
X . RESERVE
OFFICERS.................................................................................27
XI . AWARD............................................................................................................30
I. BACKGROUND
This matter comes before the arbitrator pursuant to the
Employees’ Collective
Bargaining Act, RCW Chapter 41.56 (“the Act”). The public
policy of the State of
personnel from engaging in a
strike to settle a labor dispute with a public employer.
RCW 41.56.430. When the
process of collective bargaining between the parties reaches
impasse, the Act provides that
the disputed issues, as certified by the Executive Director
of the Public Employment
Relations Commission (“PERC”), will be resolved through
interest arbitration. RCW
41.56.450.
Teamsters Local No. 589 (“the
of the Police Officers
employed by the City of
Employer”). The parties began
bargaining for a successor contract to their January 1,
1998 -
reached impasse and requested
mediation. Then, when they were unable to resolve the
impasse with the help of a
State mediator, the following issues were certified for interest
arbitration by Order of Marvin
L. Schurke, Executive Director of PERC, on February 1
1,
2002: (1) Wages for 2001, 2002
and 2003; (2) Detective Pay; (3) Call-Back; and (4)
Reserve Officer Working
Language.
The parties mutually’selected
Sandra Smith Gangle, J.D., of
through PERC appointment.procedures and pursuant to RCW 41.56.450 and
WAC 391-
55-210, as the neutral
arbitrator who would conduct a hearing and render a decision in the
matter. The parties waived the
appointment of partisan arbitrators, electing to proceed
with Arbitrator Gangle as sole interest arbitrator.
A hearing was conducted on
City Hall in
represented by their
respective representatives throughout the hearing. The City was
represented by Michael and
Bette Meglemre, of the labor relations firm of
Public Employers,
McCarthy, Attorney at Law, of
the Seattle law firm of Davies, Roberts & Reid.
The parties were each afforded a full and fair
opportunity to present testimony
and documentary evidence in
support of their respective positions. A record was
produced, consisting of three
volumes of Union documentary exhibits (Economic
Exhibits A through GG,
Negotiations Exhibits 1-1 5 , and collective bargaining
agreements from 29
Exhibits 1 through 23 and
labor contracts from the City’s ten proposed comparables).2
The parties also offered as
joint exhibits copies of the last four collective bargaining
agreements between the City of
________________________________
1 Union Exhibits are referenced herein
as U-Econ-# and U-Neg-#.
2 City Exhibits are referenced herein
as C-#.
All witnesses who appeared at the hearing,
including the parties’ representatives,
were sworn by the arbitrator
and were subject to cross-examination by the opposing
party. The City’s witnesses
were Michael Meglemre, Labor Relations Negotiator;
Donna
Bjorkman,
City Finance Director; Jeff Doran, Police Chief; and Deanna Kingery,
Human
Resources Analyst. The
Bush, Secretary-Treasurer,
Local 589; Dan La France, Police Officer; and Roger
Brubaker, Police Officer.
The arbitrator tape-recorded the testimony of all
witnesses as an adjunct to her
personal notes. It was agreed
that the arbitrator’s tapes were not an official record of the
hearing. They are the
arbitrator’s private property and are not subject to subpoena by any
party. The City assigned a
clerical employee to tape-record the hearing and those tapes
will be preserved by the parties
as the official taped record of the hearing.
Written briefs of final argument were submitted by both
parties on August 23,
2001, pursuant to their mutual
agreement. Upon receipt of the parties’ briefs, the
arbitrator officially closed
the hearing and took the matter under advisement.
The arbitrator has considered all of the testimony and
evidence that the parties
offered at the hearing. She
has weighed all the evidence, in the context of the legislative
purpose set forth in RCW 41
56.430 and the relevant factors established in RCW
41 56.465. She has carefully
considered the argument of both parties in reaching her
findings and conclusions.
II. RELEVANT STATUTORY PROVISIONS
RCW
41.56.030. Definitions. As used in this chapter:
(1) “Public Employer’’ means any officer,
board, commission, council, or other person or
body acting on behalf of any public body
governed by this chapter, or any subdivision of
such public body * * * * *
(2) “Public employee” means any employee of a
public employer except any person (a)
elected by popular vote, or
(b) appointed to office pursuant to statute, ordinance or
resolution * * * or (c) whose
duties as deputy, administrative assistant or secretary
necessarily imply a
confidential relationship * * * or (d) who is a court commissioner or a
court magistrate * * * or (e)
who is a personal assistant to a * * *judge * * * or (f)
excluded from a bargaining
unit under RCW 41.56.201(2)(a). * * * *
(3) “Bargaining representative’’ means any
lawful organization which has as one of its
primary purposes the representation of
employees in their employment relations with
employers.
(4) “Collective bargaining” means the
performance of the mutual obligations of the
public employer and the
exclusive bargaining representative to meet at reasonable times, to confer and
negotiate in good faith, and to execute a written agreement with respect to
grievance procedures and collective negotiations on personnel matters,
including wages, hours and working conditions, which may be peculiar to an
appropriate bargaining unit of such public employer, except that by such
obligation neither party shall be compelled to agree to a proposal or be
required to make a concession unless otherwise provided in this chapter.
*****
(7) “Uniformed personnel” means: (a) Law
enforcement officers as defined in RCW
41.26.030 employed by the governing body of
any city or town with a population of two
thousand five hundred or more * * * * *.
RCW
41.56.430. Uniformed personnel-Legislative declaration.
The intent and purpose of chapter 13 1, Laws
of 1973 is to recognize that there exists a
public policy of the state of
means of settling their labor
disputes; that the uninterrupted and dedicated service of
these classes of employees is
vital to the welfare and public safety of the state of
Washington; that to promote
such dedicated and uninterrupted public service there should exist an effective
and adequate alternative means of settling disputes.
RCW
41.56.450. Uniformed personnel-Interest arbitration panel-Powers
and
duties-Hearings-Findings and determination.
* * * * * The issues for determination by the
arbitration panel shall be limited to the
issues certified by the executive
director. * * * * * [T]he fees and expenses of the neutral
[arbitrator] shall be shared
equally between the parties. * * * * * [Within thirty days
following conclusion of the
hearing, the neutral [arbitrator] shall make findings of fact
and a written determination of
the issues in dispute, based on the evidence presented. A
copy thereof shall be served
on the Commission, * * * * * and on each of the parties to
the dispute. That
determination shall be final and binding on both parties, subject to
review by the superior court
upon the application of either party solely on the question of
whether the decision of the
[arbitrator] was arbitrary or capricious.
RCW 41.56.465. Uniformed personnel--Interest arbitration panel-
Determinations-Factors to be considered.
(1) In making its determination, the
[arbitrator] shall be mindful of the legislative purpose
enumerated in RCW 41 56.430 and, as
additional standards or guidelines to aid it in
reaching a decision, [she] shall take into
consideration the following factors:
(a) The
constitutional and statutory authority of the employer;
(b) Stipulations
of the parties;
(c)(i) For employees listed in RCW 41.56.030(7)(a)
through (d), comparison of the
wages, hours, and conditions of employment of
personnel involved in the proceedings with the
wages, hours, and conditions of employment of like personnel of like
employers of similar size on the west coast of the United States;
(d) The average consumer prices for goods and
services, commonly known as the cost of living;
*****
(e) Changes in any of the circumstances under
(a) through (d) of this subsection during
the pendency of the
proceedings; and
(f) Such other factors; not confined to the
factors under (a) through (e) of this subsection,
that are normally or
traditionally taken into consideration in the determination of wages,
hours, and conditions of
employment. For those employees listed in RCW
41.56.030(7)(a) who are
employed by the governing body of a city or town with a
population of less than
fifteen thousand, * * * consideration must also be given to
regional differences in the
cost of living.
III.
STATEMENT OF THE FACTS
The following facts are undisputed by the parties:
The City of Poulsbo is located in Kitsap County,
Washington, on the western
shores of
management is organized in
several departments, one of which is the Police Department.
The Police Chief, who is
appointed as Director of the Department, is responsible for day-
to-day operations. At the time
of the hearing herein, there were twelve officers and three
sergeants in the police
bargaining unit.
The City has constitutional and statutory authority to
employ the police officers
and sergeants who provide law
enforcement officer services to the City. The officers are
represented by Teamsters Local
589 and the unit has enjoyed a stable and cordial
bargaining relationship with
the City for many years, at least as far back as the 1980’s.
This is the parties’ first
interest arbitration.
In bargaining for their past two labor contracts, in 1994
and 1998 respectively, the
parties relied on a list of
eight cities that the City had used in conducting its own police.wage
surveys as the list of jurisdictions that would be considered comparable to
Poulsbo.
Those cities were the
following: Chehalis,
When the parties began negotiating for a successor to
their 1998-2000 agreement,
in October of 2000, the City’s
chief negotiator, Michael Meglemre, proposed that
they
collaborate in gathering and
looking at a number of labor contracts of police bargaining
units in small western
population estimates at the
time were close to the population estimate for Poulsbo,
according to a list prepared
by the State of
(OFM) that showed such
estimates as of
considering the five cities
that were listed immediately above Poulsbo and the five cities
immediately below Poulsbo,
excepting Steilacoom, which did not have a separate police
bargaining unit. Exhibit C-l ;
U-Neg-9. Those cities, and the population estimates that
were available at the time,
according to OFM, were as follows:
Port Orchard 7,270
Chehalis 7,020
Poulsbo 6,500
Brier 6,365
Fircrest 5,955
The
would be the “comparables”
that the parties would use throughout the bargaining for their
new contract.3 The
collective bargaining
agreements from those ten cities and using the agreements for
discussion purposes during
their bargaining sessions. Also, there is no evidence that the
Union bargainers suggested
adding the police labor contracts of Arlington, Monroe,
Ferndale or Fife, or any other
cities, to the mix of agreements that would be studied.
______________
3 No written memorandum was signed by
the parties evidencing that they had “TA’d” the list
of proposed comparables,
though such writings were produced with respect to other agreements that the
parties reached during bargaining. See, e.g., Exhibit C-23, p. 4,6,7.
The parties had four negotiating sessions, for a total of
approximately sixteen
hours of bargaining. During
those negotiations, they reached tentative agreements (TA’s)
on approximately four issues,
including a Union Security clause. See Exhibit U-Neg-2,
C-23. Meanwhile, as the labor
contracts were gathered from other cities, Mr. Meglemre
prepared documents that
summarized the provisions of those agreements, on each of the
issues in dispute. See Exhibit
C-5; U-Neg-11 (except cover page, which was added at the
mediation stage). He shared
those documents with his Union counterpart, Doug Bush, as
he prepared them. There is no
evidence Mr. Bush raised any objection to the summaries.
Upon reaching impasse after
four meetings, the parties proceeded to mediation on
February 9, 2001. Paul Schwendiman was the assigned mediator. At the first
mediation
session, the City relied on
the same ten cities it had proposed during bargaining as the
jurisdictions that should be
considered “comparables” to Poulsbo. Mr. Meglemre
submitted the documents he had
prepared during bargaining to the mediator, with a cover
page attached that referred to
them as “Joint Labor-Management Position Papers”. See
Exhibit C-5; U-Neg-l l. The Union objected strenuously to the City’s
proposed list of
cities and denied that the
position papers were “joint” documents. The Union relied on
the following list of ten
“comparable” cities, which it considered more appropriate, based
on factors of population and
revenue:
Harbor,
U-Neg-15.
After that meeting, the
parties exchanged correspondence regarding their “historic
pattern” of bargaining. See
Exhibits U-Neg-3,4,5; C-7,8. Then, at the next mediation
session, the
list of eight cities the
parties had used in 1994 and 1998. See Exhibit U-Neg-12.
Mediation was unsuccessful and
the case moved to the interest arbitration stage.
Then, in June of 2001 , the
official
Those figures showed the
actual population statistics for each of the cities that the City
and the
larger than Poulsbo, according
to the 2001 OFM report, was now shown to be a bit
smaller. Some other cities
were larger, or smaller, than OFM had estimated, but they
remained in the same relative
positions vis-a-vis Poulsbo. The Census figures, with
the
OFM estimates included in
parentheses alongside, are as follows for both the City’s and
the
City’s list . Census
(OFM) Union’s list Census (OFM)
Shelton 8,442 (7,865) Monroe 13,795 (N/A)
Port Orchard 7,693 (7,270)
Normandy Park 6,392 (7,035) Ferndale 8,758
(7,925)
Chehalis 7,057
(7,020) Port Orchard 7,693 (7,270)
Gig Harbor 6,465 (6,575) Chehalis 7,057 (7,020)
Poulsbo 6,813
(6,500) Poulsbo 6,813 (6,500)
Brier 6,383 (6,365) Gig Harbor 6,465
(6,575)
Fircrest 5,868 (5,955) Fife 4,784 (5,100)
The City is financially healthy. It acknowledges that it
is able to pay whatever
increases in wages and
economic benefits the arbitrator may award in this proceeding.
As of 1998, Kitsap County, which includes Poulsbo, has
been included in the U.S.
Department of Labor’s
Published description of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton
Metropolitan Area, for
purposes of determining that area’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Poulsbo’s Administrative and Public Works (APW)
Employees, like its Police
Officers, are represented in
bargaining by Teamsters Local 589. The parties’ APW
collective bargaining agreement,
effective between
2003, provided for the
following wage increases:
2001: 3.42%
2002: 90%
of the June 2000 to June 2001 CPI-U, Seattle index (but no less than 2% and no
greater than 6% without adjustment;
2003: 90%
of the June 2001 to June 2002 CPI-U, Seattle Index (but no less than 2% and no
greater than 6% without adjustment.
See
Exhibit C-19.
IV. RELEVANT CRITERIA FOR AWARD
RCW 41 56.465 (1) prescribes the factors that an
arbitrator must rely upon in
making an award in a public
sector interest arbitration case in
that are relevant to this
proceeding are as follows:
RCW 41.56.465 (1)
* * *
(1) In making
its determination, the [arbitrator] shall be mindful of the legislative purpose
enumerated in RCW 41 56.430 and, as additional standards
or guidelines to aid it in
reaching a decision, [she] shall take into consideration
the following factors:
(a) The
constitutional and statutory authority of the employer;
(b) Stipulations
of the parties;
(c)(i) * * * * * [C]omparison of the wages, hours, and conditions of employment
of
personnel involved in the
proceedings with the wages, hours, and conditions of
employment of like personnel
of like employers of similar size on the west coast of the
(d) The average consumer prices for goods and services,
commonly known as the cost of
living;
*****
(e) Changes in any of the circumstances under (a) through
(d) of this subsection during
the pendency of the
proceedings; and
(f) Such other factors, not confined to the factors under
(a) through (e) of this subsection,
that are normally or traditionally taken into
consideration in the determination of wages,
hours, and conditions of employment. For those employees
* * * who are employed by
the governing body of a city or town with a population of
less than fifteen thousand, * * *
consideration must also be
given to regional differences in the cost of living.
The Act does not give guidance
as to the relative weight that the arbitrator should
give to the enumerated
factors, (a) - (f ). The legislature has allowed the arbitrator to
exercise discretion in
weighing the factors and the evidence supporting them in each
individual case, keeping in
mind that the arbitrator’s role is simply to provide an
alternative mechanism to a
work stoppage, so that the police officers can provide
“uninterrupted and dedicated
service” to the people of
to completion the terms and
conditions of their collective bargaining agreement.
It is incumbent on the
arbitrator to use principled reasoning in drawing her
conclusions. Since interest
arbitration is an extension of the collective bargaining
process, the arbitrator must
strive to obtain, as nearly as possible, the package of
provisions that the parties
would have agreed upon if they had been free to continue
bargaining in good faith, as
parties do in the private sector and in public-sector agencies
where they have a right to
strike. The Award should not be a compromise, or a splitting
of the difference between the
parties’ positions, because such an award could unfairly
benefit a party that advanced
an extreme position without justification.
In the instant case, there is
no dispute as to the legal authority of the Employer.
Also, the parties have
stipulated that four cities should be treated as comparable
12.jurisdictions to Poulsbo:
Port Orchard, Chehalis,
further stipulated that the
City would not make an inability-to-pay argument and that the
arbitrator’s award should be’fully retroactive to
the arbitrator to memorialize
certain contractual provisions that the parties tentatively
agreed upon during bargaining.
The arbitrator will honor all of those stipulations.
The factors that the arbitrator must weigh and decide,
therefore, are items (c)
through (f) of RCW
41.56.465(1). Of those items, the most fundamental is
comparability. Once the
comparable cities are identified, the arbitrator will have a
framework for analyzing the
evidence and resolving the disputed issues.
V.
DETERMINING THE COMPARABLE JURISDICTIONS
The threshold factor is comparability. The Act requires
that the arbitrator draw “a
comparison of the wages,
hours, and conditions of employment of personnel involved in
the proceedings with the
wages, hours, and conditions of employment of like personnel
of like employers of similar
size”. The statute does not dictate, however, how the
arbitrator should select those
“like employers of similar size ” .
The parties have stipulated that four cities meet the
statutory definition. Those are
position that the other party
agreed at some point in time to accept a particular list of
supplemental comparable cities
and that the arbitrator should honor that list as a
stipulation regarding the
additional cities. The City contends the parties agreed, during
bargaining in the fall of
2000, that Brier, Fircrest,
and
agreement. Instead, it argued
during the hearing that Arlington, Ferndale, Fife and
Monroe, which had been used as
comparables in 1994 and 1998, remained appropriate as
agreed-upon comparables. In
its brief of final argument, however, the Union has dropped
its reliance on those four
cities and has asked the arbitrator to limit her comparability
study to the four cities that
the parties expressly stipulated to at the hearing.
For a number of reasons, the arbitrator has determined
that the parties would most
likely have bargained a group
of comparable cities that included a greater number than
the four stipulated
comparables. Therefore, she finds she would be doing the parties a
disservice if she were to
limit comparability to those four, as the
First, the parties had a history of using eight cities
for bargaining purposes during
the past two bargaining
cycles. This shows they preferred using a considerably larger
number than four. Secondly,
the evidence shows that, when the parties met in October of
2000 to begin bargaining for
the new agreement, they agreed to gather and consider the
collective bargaining
agreements of the ten cities that the City now proposes as
comparables. While the
arbitrator is not convinced that the Union agreed to accept those
ten cities as comparables
throughout bargaining, the evidence is persuasive that the
parties agreed to the
reasonableness of the process whereby they would study the wages,
hours and employment
conditions of ten cities in
be close in population size to
the City of
reviewing the collective bargaining
agreements of police units in those cities. Also, the
Union proposed ten cities as
comparables at the first mediation session and then eight
cities thereafter.
Third, it is axiomatic that
the more data parties can evaluate and compare, the more
clearly the similarities and
differences can be defined among the designated cornparables
on the issues in dispute. If
four comparables are used, it can be difficult to perceive any
distinct trends among them.
The split can easily be two to two, with no discernible
rationale for the division.
Finally, the arbitrator finds
that having a longer list of cities available as
comparables will provide the
parties a better opportunity to resume the cordial labor
relations they enjoyed in the
past when they begin their next round of bargaining. If the
arbitrator were to rely on
only the four stipulated cities, the parties would most likely
begin their bargaining next
year by debating the issue of comparable cities once again.
The same contention that led
to this interest arbitration might well generate another.
Now, having decided that the list of comparable cities
should include more than the
four stipulated cities, the
arbitrator must decide whether to choose the City’s proposed list
of six additional cities, the
four supplemental cities that the parties used in 1994 and
1998, which the Union proposed
at the hearing, or a list that the arbitrator would craft
independently, based on
criteria that the arbitrator would deem appropriate. For the
following reasons, the arbitrator
has decided that the City’s list is the most appropriate, at
least for the current
bargaining cycle.
First, the arbitrator is
persuaded by the evidence that the parties collaboratively
collected and reviewed the
collective bargaining agreements of the City’s proposed list of
comparables. Mr. Doug Bush,
the Union’s chief bargainer, acknowledged at the hearing
that he did not object to
gathering the police agreements of those cities that were listed
“five up and five down” in
population from the City of
statistics, and to considering
how those cities and their unions had treated the fifteen or
twenty issues that the parties
were negotiating. There is no evidence that the Union
suggested the parties consider
the collective bargaining agreements for
Arlington or Fife on the
disputed issues, until the parties met with a State mediator, after
impasse was declared.
Meanwhile, Mr. Meglemre had been typing out
comparative
charts on each of the parties:
disputed issues, summarizing how the City’s list of ten
cities were treating each
issue, and he had been sharing those charts with the
bargainers by fax
transmission, believing that those cities were being mutually treated as
"comparables".4 Also, Mr. Meglemre
and his bargaining team had been reaching
tentative agreements with the
on the information that was
gleaned from the agreements under review. For example,
Mr. Meglemre
testified that the City tentatively agreed to accept the Union’s proposal for
a union security clause, based
on its determination that all of the collective bargaining
agreements that the parties
were reviewing contained such a clause .5
_________________________________________
4 When the parties went into mediation,
Mr. Meglemre assembled all of the charts into a
document which
he entitled “Joint Labor
Management Position Papers”. Exhibit C-5, U-Neg-1 I . At that point the
objected to his use of the
phrase “Joint Labor Management”. The
charts themselves had been
prepared collaboratively by the parties during the bargaining process.
5 Mr. Bush testified that the union
security clause was agreed upon at the parties’ second bargaining
session, but they did not have
all the agreements in hand until the third session. The arbitrator found both
Mr. Meglemre
and Mr. Bush to be credible witnesses. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude
that the City
agreed to the Union Security
clause, at the second bargaining session, based on its review of the agreements
that had been collected as of
that date, which may not have been all ten.
In other words, the
comparables during bargaining
was perceived by Mr. Meglemre and the City’s
bargaining team as an
acceptance by the
five down” cities. That
perception is evidenced by the fact that Mr. Meglemre
referenced
his typed summaries of the
various contract provisions as “Joint Labor Management
Position Papers”. Under the
circumstances, Mr. Meglemre’s belief that the
documents
were “jointly” acceptable was
not unreasonable.
The arbitrator would be remiss
in her duty, however, if she did not ensure that the
list of ten cities proposed by
the City met the objective criteria that arbitrators routinely
apply in
decision-making process that
the parties had used during bargaining. For instance, the
evidence shows that the
parties considered only the population of each of the cities, and
their position vis-a-vis Poulsbo, “five up, five down”, except Steilacoom.
They did not
compare the economic status of
the cities.
The arbitrator has reviewed
the evidence offered by the parties at the hearing to
confirm that the ten cities on
the City’s proposed list meet the standard that is routinely
applied in
current bargaining purposes
than the list of cities the parties relied on in the past. The
arbitrator is convinced that
both of those facts are confirmed.
Specifically, all ten of the
cities on the City’s list fall within the customary arbitral
parameters of 50% to 200% the
size of Poulsbo,6 in both population and assessed
valuation,7 as
determined by the most current data from the
See Exhibit U-Econ-A, C-15,16.
One of the cities that the parties relied on in the past,
however -
Econ-A. Therefore, it is
clearly beyond the upper limit of comparability and must be
rejected. Also, the city of
Arlington, whose population in 2000 was close to 12,000, has
more than doubled since 1995.
Id. At 175% of Poulsbo’s 2000 population, Arlington is
now much closer to the upper
limit of comparability than it used to be. If Arlington were
treated as a comparable, and
no city was included whose population was near the lower
limit - that is, 50-60% of
Poulsbo’s -the mix of comparables would tend to be
unbalanced and that could be
unfair to one of the parties. Yet Fife, the smallest of the
cities that the parties relied
on in the past, currently has 70% of the population size of
Poulsbo. Id. Curiously, it is
now wealthier than Arlington in assessed valuation. See
Exhibit C-16, U-Econ-A. And
Ferndale, the only other city on the 1994/1998 list, is now
at 128% of Poulsbo’s
population, while its assessed valuation is lower than Poulsbo’s.
Id. Therefore, the arbitrator
finds that the cities the parties used in their past bargaining
no longer provide an
appropriate balance to be considered comparables to Poulsbo.
__________________
6 In its brief the City argues that a
range of 50% to 150% is more appropriate than 50%-200%, but does not cite any
arbitral authority for that standard. Indeed, the City’s chart on page 14 of
its brief confirms that at
least three arbitrators have
exceeded the upper limit of a 50% to 150% range (Arb.
Axon in
PPOG (86%), Arb. Beck in
7 The Union argued at the hearing that
assessed valuation is not an appropriate criterion for determining
comparability. Interest
arbitrators routinely rely on the triple criteria of population, proximity and
assessed
valuation figures, however.
The
better indicator of the city’s
wealth and ability to finance the wages and economic benefits of a collective
bargaining agreement than
assessed valuation alone. In a case like this one, overall revenue figures
would
not be particularly helpful to
the arbitrator, because the City has acknowledged that it can and will pay
whatever wages and benefits
are awarded. Therefore, the
a better indicator of
comparability than assessed valuation may be more appropriate to discuss in
another
interest arbitration.
For the reasons stated, the
arbitrator has concluded that the following six cities shall
supplement the parties’ four
stipulated cities as comparables: Brier, Fircrest,
Stevens,
should monitor the changes in
population and in patterns of wealth among the ten cities.
It could be that one or more
of them will become too large or too small or too rich or too
poor to be treated as a
comparable to Poulsbo over a continuous period of time.
However, it should be
relatively easy for the parties to make appropriate additions,
subtractions or substitutions
of cities during their bargaining cycles, upon reviewing the
most recent demographic and
economic data that is available. As Arbitrator Levak
stated, in City of
“Historical comparators will
not be continued where the party asserting a change
is able to demonstrate through
evidence that a change in comparators is
appropriate. For example, such
may be the case where populations and assessed
valuations have changed
significantly in recent years.”
VI.
THE ISSUES
The issues in dispute and the
parties’ last best offers on each of them at the hearing are
summarized as follows:
A. Wage Increase:
Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton) Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton)
B. Callback:
Language changes TA’d
Language changes TA’d
3-hour
Min. callback premium Retain 2-hour callback
C. Detective Premium
New 5% premium No new premium
D. Reserve Officers
New
language: Reserve No
new provision
Officers may supplement, not
Supplant regular officers,
Except where vacancy is
Offered to regular officers
First, but not taken
Each of the issues will be
discussed and resolved on the following pages:
VII. WAGES
Proposals:
Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton)
Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton)
Findings of Fact: The
that the parties have agreed
to annual wage increases equivalent to at least 100% of the
because of that history, the
arbitrator should grant 100% of the CPI in each of the three
years of the current contract.
________________
8 Neither party explained in its brief
whether the choice between CPI-W or CPI-U was significant. No evidence was
offered on this point either. The arbitrator notes, however, that the parties used
the CPI-U Index in the APW contract. See Exhibit C-19.
9 In 1995, the wage increase was split
into two segments, the net result of which actually exceeded the CPI increase
for that year.
City Witness Donna Bjorkman,
who has been the Finance Director for twelve years
and was a member of the City's
bargaining team, testified at the hearing that she and her
staff did an intensive salary
study in 1999 and determined that an appropriate wage
increase for City employees;
including the police bargaining unit, for 2001, 2002 and
2003 would be 90% of the
annual Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton CPI Index, rather than
100% as it had been in the
past. She said the City had determined that the CPI figure
includes a cost factor for
medical expenses and that factor is substantial. The police
bargaining unit receives a
substantial medical insurance benefit as part of their
contractual compensation
package, however. A 10% reduction in the CPI would be more
than offset by the contractual
benefit. She said the police only pay about $10 per month,
out of a total premium cost of
$600 per month, for their medical insurance coverage.
Ms. Bjorkman pointed out that
the City did not single out the police officers for
different treatment from other
City employees. An offer of 90% of the CPI was made to
the Administrative and Public
Works (APW) bargaining unit for each of the three years
of their collective bargaining
agreement, beginning
accepted by their union
representative, Teamsters Local 589.
Union Witness Bush testified that the APW accepted the
10% reduction, in part,
because they learned that a 5%
incentive was available to employees for certification in
their particular specialty.
Ms. Bjorkman countered on rebuttal that the same
certification
incentive is available to
police employees, yet she was unaware that any of them had
applied for that benefit.
The record shows that the wage increase for APW employees
for 2001 was 3.42%,
which reflects a floor of 90%
of the CPI-U, as proposed by the City in this matter. In the
second and third years,
however, the minimum wage increase is stated as 90% of the
CPI-U Seattle Index, with a
minimum of 2% and a maximum of 6%.
those years, if the maximum
CPI increase exceeded 6%, the APW raise would be
increased by one-half the
excess between 6% and 9%, up to a maximum of 7 1/2 %. See
Exhibit C-19.
The evidence shows further that the 2001 adjusted wage
rates, monthly and hourly,
for the four cities that the papies stipulated were comparable to Poulsbo and the six
additional cities that the
arbitrator has determined to be comparable, range from a high of
$4,241 per month, or $28.14
per hour (including holiday and vacation pay), for a 10-year
Gig Harbor police officer, to
a low of $3,631 per month, or $23.89 per hour, for a 10-year
officer working in Brier. 10 See Exhibit C-17. The average figure for the
officers in the
ten comparables with ten years
of service experience is $4,012 per month, or $26.32 per
hour. A ten-year officer in
Poulsbo, with a raise in 2001 of 90% of the
(3.42%), as proposed by the
City, would earn $4,109.58 per month, or $27.09 per hour,
which would be slightly above
those average comparable figures. See Exhibit C-17.
_____________
10 The City, in its brief, demonstrated
that the average length of service of Poulsbo officers is 11.17 years.
Therefore, a comparison of wages paid to officers in all the comparable
jurisdictions who have at least ten years of service makes sense.
The
comparable cities received
raises in 2001 between 2.99% and 5.99%. Exhibit U-Econ-
AA. The
of the cities, the average of
which was $3,954.50. The
step wage, after five years,
was $3,895.78.
The
top step is reached at
different stages in each of the eleven cities, and varies between 2 1/2
years and ten years. Also,
increases for longevity, vacation and holiday pay were not
factored into the
chart.11 Therefore,
the arbitrator finds the City’s wage comparison exhibit to be a better
“apples-to-apples” comparison
of the actual wages that are paid to experienced officers in
Poulsbo and its comparators.
____________
11
According to Mr. Meglemre’s unrebutted
testimony, the longevity premium in Poulsbo is unique, in that it is based on
an officer’s base wage plus the past year’s sum total of paid overtime.
The arbitrator takes official notice of the list of items
that the
(BOL) includes in what it
terms the “cost of living”, when it publishes the CPI Index for
a particular area. The list
includes: Food beverages, Housing, Apparel, Transportation,
Medical care (including
services, equipment and medicine), Recreation,
Education/Communication, Other
goods/services and Energy. See BOL Website at
http://www. bls.gov. The
single largest increase for the period between July 2001 to July
2002, according to the website
information, was in the Medical Care component.
CONCLUSION:
The City’s offer of 90% of the increase in the
Index in each of the three
years of the contract makes sense at this time and should be
awarded. While it is true that
the parties have historically agreed upon 100% of the
annual CPI increase as a wage
increase, it is appropriate at this time that the parties
recognize the impact that
medical care costs have on the CPI computation and the role
that the contractual medical
insurance benefit plays in reducing the cost of living for
bargaining-unit members.
Where, as here, the bargaining unit members receive a
substantial medical insurance
benefit, the increase in medical expenses that is felt by
them is substantially less thdn it is by other Seattle-area wage earners.
Also, the arbitrator is persuaded that, with a 90% CPI-U
wage increase each year,
an experienced police officer’s
monthly and hourly wage will keep pace with the average
wage rate that is being paid
to similarly-experienced officers in the comparable
communities. There is little
risk that Poulsbo will experience difficulty in retaining its
well-tenured police force, as
a consequence of the 10% reduction from its past pattern of
annual CPI increases, because
their wages match or exceed those of most comparables.
The arbitrator further finds that the police wage rate
increases will match the
increases that were agreed
upon by Poulsbo’s APW bargaining unit. For this reason, the
arbitrator will require a
minimum raise of 2% for the third year of the contract, in order to
match the minimum increase
that is established in the APW labor agreement for 2003.12
Therefore, internal equity
will be maintained in City employment and such equity should
enhance the morale among City
employees.
__________
12 According to the City’s wage proposal, which
the arbitrator is awarding, the actual CPI increase for 2003 will be based on
the period between June of 2001 and June of 2002, and that increase has not
been clearly established by the evidence.
VIII. CALLBACK
Proposals: Union City
Language changes TA’d Language
changes TA’d
3-hour Min. callback
premium Retain 2-hour callback
Findings of Fact:
During their bargaining in
the fall of 2000, the parties
reached agreement on a number
of changes in the language of Article 20 of their
collective bargaining
agreement, relating to Callback and Court Pay. They deleted the
previous language in
subsections 20.1,20.2 and 20.2.1 and agreed to new language in
Subsections
20.1,20.2,20.4,20.5, and 20.6, then renumbered the final paragraph of the
section as 20.6.1. See Exhibit
C-23, pages 13, 14. They also agreed to new language in
Subsection 20.3, but disagreed
on the word “two” in line three, as follows:
20.3 Personnel who are called back to work between their
regularly scheduled duty days or on
their regularly scheduled
weekend will be paid at the overtime rate of time-and-one-half with a
guaranteed minimum of b o 1
hours. Effective January 1, 2002, the guaranteed minimum shall be
three hours. If the callback
extends beyond three hours, the emDloyee will be paid
the actual hours
worked at the overtime rate of
time-and-one-half.
See Exhibit C-23,
page 13 (Underlining shows new language; italics show disputed word).
When the parties reviewed the labor contracts of the ten
jurisdictions that have now
been found to be comparable to
Poulsbo, during bargaining in the fall of 2000, the City’s
representative produced a
chart showing that the average minimum callback at that time,
expressed in straight-time
hours, was 3.65. See Exhibit C-21. The chart showed that
four of the cities (
of 4.5 hours each, or three
hours at time-and-one-half rate. Four other cities (
time hours. Shelton allowed
only 2.5 hours, while Chehalis allowed four hours.
The
among the comparables, which
the
The
City’s exhibit, pays 4.5 hours
straight time as minimum callback pay. The arbitrator
agrees that the Gig Harbor
2001 -2003 agreement, in the record, shows that call-outs
outside the employee’s normal
workday and more than three hours outside of the
officer’s normal shift hours
are compensated at time-and-one-half for a minimum of three
hours.
Conclusion:
The arbitrator finds that the trend among the comparables is to
grant 4.5 straight hours as
minimum callback pay. The Poulsbo contract should follow
that trend. Therefore, in
addition to granting the provisions of Article 20 that the parties
T.A.’d
in the fall of 2000, in accordance with the parties’ stipulation, the
arbitrator will
the following language in
Subsection 20.3:
20.3 Personnel
who are called back to work between their regularly
scheduled duty days or on
their regularly scheduled weekend will be paid at the
overtime rate of
time-and-one-half with a guaranteed minimum of three hours. If
the callback extends beyond
three hours, the employee will be paid the actual
hours worked at the overtime
rate of time-and-one-half.
IX. DETECTIVE PREMIUM
Proposals:
New
5% premium No new premium
Findings of Fact:
At the hearing, very little evidence was offered on the issue
of a 5% premium for police.
officers who are assigned to perform detective work. Chief
Doran testified that, in his
opinion, assignment of an officer to detective duties is, in and
of itself, a benefit over regular
patrol duties. The hours are better, in that detectives work
more interesting and is not
any more dangerous than that of regular patrol officers. Also,
officers are eligible to get a
civilian clothing allowance when they work as detectives.
Finally, when they return to a
patrol assignment, the change is not considered a demotion.
That evidence was not rebutted
by any of the police officers who testified at the hearing.
The collective bargaining agreements of the ten
comparators show that five of
them offer some type of
detective premium. See Exhibit C-20; U-Econ-CC. Two of
those premiums are nominal
only, however,
month. Only
arbitration.
In its brief that
premium. The
than 5%. The arbitrator does
not find, however, that the evidence justifies any additional
financial premium for an
officer who provides detective service in Poulsbo.
Conclusion: The
therefore, shall be denied.
X. RESERVE OFFICERS
Proposals:
New language: Reserve No new provision
Officers may supplement, not
Supplant regular officers,
Except where vacancy is
Offered to regular officers
First, but not taken
Findings of Fact:
The Poulsbo Police
Department has had a volunteer
reserve officer program in
place for some time. Police Chief Doran testified that the
volunteers receive 240 hours
of training at the
that a paid officer receives.
Union Witness Doug Bush testified that it was his
understanding, until recently,
that the reserve officers only assisted regular officers on
“ride-alongs”
and that they were never assigned to work regular shifts. When it came to
his attention that they were
being assigned to work full shifts on occasion, to substitute
for officers who were absent
due to illness or training or various leave requests, his
objected to the practice, on
that basis that such assignments should be offered first to
regular officers. Only where
no regular officer is willing to accept the assignment should
a reserve officer be allowed
to fill it, in the
The Chief testified that he and his sergeants have
determined that the minimum
staffing requirement, for safety
purposes in Poulsbo, is two officers per shift. He said
that sometimes three officers
are scheduled for a particular shift, but they are not really
needed to accomplish the work
that needs to be done. Therefore, if one of the officers
calls in sick or is otherwise
absent for the day, the remaining two can do the work that is
required. The Chief contends
there is no reason to pay overtime to call in an off-duty
officer to substitute for the
absentee in such a situation. It is only in such cases, said the
Chief, that he would assign a
reserve officer to work with the two regular officers
remaining on duty.
The
must be a need for the third
officer. Therefore, it should be a regular fully-trained officer,
not a volunteer reserve
officer, who is sought first to substitute for the absentee.
Otherwise, the Department is
“supplanting”, rather than “supplementing” a regular
officer with a volunteer and
that would constitute an assault on the labor-management
relationship of the parties,
in the
The evidence that the parties gathered during their
bargaining in 2000 showed that,
among the ten comparable
jurisdictions, the police labor contracts in Port Orchard,
Chehalis and
incorporate here. Other
contracts, however, did not restrict the assignment of reserve
officers. See Exhibit C-22.
The
recent
from supplanting scheduled
officers with reserve officers, unless the work is first offered
to at least two regular officefs. See, Exhibit U-Econ-GG and the Gig Harbor 2001-2003
agreement at page 3.
Conclusions:
The arbitrator is persuaded that the trend among the
comparable jurisdictions is to
prevent less-qualified volunteer officers from
“supplanting” regular fully
-trained professional officers on regular shift-assignment
work. The arbitrator finds
that the trend makes sense and the
adopted in Poulsbo. Where
managers have determined that a certain number of officers is appropriate
for a particular shift, by
assigning that number of officers in advance, and then one of
those officers is absent, the
work should be first offered to other trained officers, before a
volunteer is allowed to serve
as a substitute. If, as the Chief testified, the minimum
staffing level, at two
officers per shift, were all that was needed on every shift throughout
the work week of the police
department, it is unclear to the arbitrator why the Chief
would ever assign three
officers to any shift in the first place. It seems more reasonable
to conclude from the evidence that
the Chief assigns three officers to some shifts because
more officers are needed at
those times than at other times. It could be because criminal
conduct is more likely to
occur during those periods of time or the Department has
identified some other need for
having trained public safety officers on duty. Once the
Chief has made such a
determination, and then one of the assigned officers is absent, it is
only reasonable to expect that
the Department would assign a regular, fully-trained,
officer to fill the vacancy. A
volunteer officer with only half the training of a regular
officer might put his or her
colleagues at some risk. Therefore, a volunteer should only
be assigned if no regular
officer were interested in accepting the appointment.
AWARD
For the reasons stated in the foregoing Opinion, the
arbitrator awards as
All provisions that were
tentatively agreed-upon (TA’d) previously by the
parties, including but not
limited to the changes in Article 20, Callback
and Court Pay, are awarded;
(2) Wage Increases
for the three years of the contract term shall be:
Effective
Effective
Effective
Index for
Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, but not less than 2%;
(3) Article 20.3 shall be amended to read:
20.3 Personnel
who are called back to work between their regularly
scheduled duty days or on
their regularly scheduled weekend
will be paid at the overtime
rate of time-and-one-half with a
guaranteed minimum of three
hours. If the callback extends
beyond three hours, the
employee will be paid the actual hours
worked at the overtime rate of
time-and-one-half;
(4) The
hereby DENIED;
(5) The
reserve officers will only
supplement, but will not supplant regular
officers who are members of
the bargaining unit is hereby ALLOWED;
(6) The parties
shall be mutually responsible for paying the fees and costs of
the arbitrator in this matter.
DATED this 18th day
of September, 2002
___________________________________
SANDRA
SMITH GANGLE, P.C.