Union Wins Plymouth Arbitration, Town Administrator Stankiewicz Shirks Responsibility
SEIU 888 recently won an arbitration victory upholding the right of senior employees to bump when the employer targets them for a reductions in hours.
The dispute began when Town HR Director, Roberta Kedy, notified 888 members Patricia Santos, Margaret Fitzgibbons, Deborah Cavicchi and Rebecca Kearney that their hours were being reduced by one day a week. The union tried to implement the bumping process contained in the contract. But the administration refused to follow the contract and the union filed a grievance.
At the arbitration, the Town contended that it could target any employee for a reduction in hours without triggering the Seniority or Layoff provisions of the contract. The union argued that if this was the case, then the Town could reduce a worker to just one hour a week. And that any reduction in hours must be viewed as a partial layoff which triggers the members right to enforce the seniority and bumping sections of the contract.
The arbitrator agreed with the union, found that the Town had violated the contract, and ordered the town to pay the members' lost wages and benefits.
In a recent news article in "Wicked Local Plymouth", Town Manager Mark Stankiewicz bemoaned the fact that the Town was going to have to come up with $15,000 to satisfy the arbitrator's judgement. But this cost could have been avoided altogehter, if the Stankiewicz had simply followed the process laid out in the contract.
Stankiewicz also hints darkly in the article that he may exact his revenge by laying off innocent town workers in order to make up the funding.
SEIU 888 strongly suggests that the Plymouth Board of Selectmen should considering holding those administrators who were responsible for this fiasco, personally liable and recoup the funds from their salaries; instead of allowing Stankiewicz to go after low paid town workers who actually perform their jobs without costing the town thousands of dollars in lost wages and useless litigation.