Reinstatement, 17 Months Back Pay Awarded in NAGE Arbitration Win
February 20, 2008
NAGE attorney Richard Waring has won a significant arbitration involving a long-term employee who was terminated for violating a last chance agreement (LCA) negotiated between herself and the state agency for which she worked. The arbitrator found that the agency had no just cause for the termination and ordered the employee reinstated to her position with seniority and full back pay dating to September 2006.
Commenting on the win, Unit 6 Local 282 President Greg Sorozan said, "We recognized early on that the facts of this case were clearly in our favor."
The case was won largely on Attorney Waring's argument that the last chance agreement signed by the grievant was unenforceable because it had been negotiated without consultation with the Union. The arbitrator wrote in his decision that, "The Employer's failure to include the Union when it negotiated the LCA invalidated the document as an enforceable agreement because the Union, which is the exclusive bargaining agent for the grievant and other employees in the bargaining unit, was not consulted."
Finding that the LCA was, at most, a warning notice, the arbitrator ruled that the grievant's violation of the LCA did not constitute just cause to terminate the grievant.