Opinion
No. HHB CV08 4016691
November 21, 2008
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON APPLICATION TO VACATE ARBITRATION
The plaintiff City of New Britain has filed an application to vacate an interim and a final arbitration award relating to a recognition of a pay differential for certain supervisory employees who are members of the defendant Local 1186, Council 4, AFSCME. The interim award was rendered by the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration ("Board") on October 3, 2007, and the final arbitration award was rendered by the Board on February 5, 2008.
The plaintiff filed its application to vacate on February 29, 2008. Thereafter the defendant appeared by counsel and a briefing schedule was put in place. The briefs were filed, and the case was submitted to the court on September 15, 2008.
THE ARBITRATION DECISIONS
The city and the union negotiated a collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") running from July 1, 2003, to June 30, 2008. In January 2006, the city and the union negotiated a number of upgrades that had the effect of increasing the pay of certain members of the bargaining unit. Thereafter upon calculating the pay rate for certain of these employees, it was discovered that the supervisors of these employees, classified as "foremen," were paid a differential that was less than 5% above the rate paid to the employees whom they supervised. The Civil Service regulations of New Britain provide that persons classified as foremen shall be paid at least 5% more than the employees whom they supervise.
The foremen, as a class, filed an unfair labor practice complaint, which was resolved via an agreement with the city on September 8, 2006. That Settlement Agreement provided:
The city of New Britain hereby agrees that AFSCME Local 1186 may file a grievance regarding the issue of Foremen being paid less than 5% more than their subordinates. This grievance shall be filed directly at arbitration. The City of New Britain and AFSCME Local 1186 further agree that either party may raise any claim or defense they could have made had they filed at Step 1, including the issue of arbitrability but not including timeliness. In consideration of the above, the Union agrees to the withdrawal and closing of [the unfair labor practice case].
The matter was thereafter submitted to arbitration in two phases. In the first submission to the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration, the city argued that the matter was not arbitrable at all. The city pointed to a Memorandum of Understanding that had been signed with the union at the time of the January 2006 upgrades which read:
The parties hereby mutually agreed that the list of proposed upgrades on the attached pages (dated 1/18/06) would go into effect retroactive to January 1, 2006. Any omissions, adjustments, corrections, etc. can only be made with the signature of both parties. The parties agree that arbitration shall NOT be used to redress all upgrades that have not been resolved in negotiations.
[Emphasis in original.]
The Board heard the parties and rendered an award that found that the matter of the claimed inadequacy in the pay differential for the foremen class was indeed arbitrable. Recognizing that the foreman pay differential issue was one that neither side had foreseen, and was an issue that was outside the scope of upgrades that would normally have been the subject of the collective bargaining process, as opposed to the grievance and arbitration process, the Board found that the 2006 Settlement Agreement, read in conjunction with the CBA and the letter agreement regarding the upgrades, did not prohibit arbitration of the dispute.
The parties then moved to the second phase of the arbitration. After hearing evidence, the Board determined that the Civil Service rules that mandated a 5% pay differential for supervisors applied to this situation. This finding found support in the actual language in the CBA, Article 2.0, that affirms any other "statute, ordinance, regulation or other lawful provision over matters involving the municipality" was to be followed as long as it did not conflict with the specific provision of the CBA. The Board found that the Merit Rules of the Civil Service Commission set forth, as a guiding principal, that supervisors are to be paid at a higher rate than their subordinates. The Board found that there was nothing about this principal that conflicted with the provisions of the CBA and that indeed the two provisions could be read and applied in concert.
Based on the evidence, the Board found that it was clearly the intention of the parties to incorporate the language of the civil service rules into the salary schedules used by the parties. Moreover the Board credited evidence that the foreman group that constituted the class about whom the arbitration was filed were all actually supervisory personnel entitled to the benefit of the supervisors' pay differential as prescribed in the Civil Service Rules.
THE SCOPE OF REVIEW
When a submission is unrestricted, the scope of review for arbitration awards is exceedingly narrow. Every reasonable inference is to be made in favor of the arbitral award and of the arbitrator's decisions. International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 361 v. New Milford, 81 Conn.App. 726, 729, 841 A.2d 706 (2004). This is so as to the determination of arbitrability in the first instance, as well as to the determination of the merits of the dispute. See, e.g. East Hartford v. East Hartford Municipal Employees Union, 206 Conn. 643, 645, 539 A.2d 125 (1988). In Costello Construction Corporation v. Teamsters Local 559, 167 Conn. 315, 318, 355 A.2d 279 (1974), the court held that where the parties have submitted the issue of arbitrability to the arbitrator for determination, the court is bound by the arbitrator's determination unless that determination clearly falls within the proscriptions of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-418 of the General Statutes, or procedurally violates the parties' agreement.
As for the decision on the merits, the same scope of review applies. Where the submission does not otherwise limit the issue, the arbitrators are empowered to decide all factual and legal questions and an award cannot be vacated on the grounds that the interpretation of the agreement by the arbitrators was erroneous.
Courts will not review the evidence nor, where the submission is unrestricted, will they review the arbitrators decision of the legal questions involved . . . In other words, [u]nder an unrestricted submission, the arbitrators' decision is considered final and binding; thus the courts will not review the evidence considered by the arbitrators nor will they review the award for errors of law or fact . . . Furthermore, in applying this general rule of deference to an arbitrator's award, [e]very reasonable presumption and intendment will be made in favor of the [arbitral] award and of the arbitrators' acts and proceedings.
Brantley v. New Haven, 100 Conn.App. 853, 864-65, 920 A.2d 331 (2007) (citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted); Rocky Hill Teachers Ass'n. v. Board of Education, 72 Conn.App. 274, 278, 804 A.2d 999, cert. denied, 262 Conn. 907, 810 A.2d 272 (2002).
DISCUSSION
Essentially the city claims that the arbitrators made an erroneous legal interpretation when 1) they decided that the dispute was subject to arbitration and 2) they decided, on the merits, that the foreman class was entitled to be paid at a rate that was 5% above the employees whom the foremen supervised. However this court is not empowered to overturn these decisions of the arbitrators, based as they are on an interpretation by the arbitrators of the agreements entered into by the parties. This is so even if the Board's interpretation was wrong. Brantley v. New Haven, supra; see also, New Haven v. AFSCME, Council 15, Local 530, 106 Conn.App. 691, 697, 943 A.2d 494 (2008).
CONCLUSION
The plaintiff has failed to persuade this court that there are any grounds upon which to vacate the interim and final arbitration awards. Accordingly the Application to Vacate Arbitration(s) is denied.