Labor counsel: HART should let arbitration proceed on ATU hazard-pay grievance

Outside labor counsel David Adams told the HART Board the union’s grievance — filed May 2, 2024 — seeks time-and-one-half pay for work between Nov. 1, 2020, and May 11, 2023. Adams said the agency and the union previously agreed to a “40-hour agreement” in 2020 that guaranteed 40 hours’ pay to union members in exchange for waiving hazard pay, and he described that earlier agreement, the $1,500 bonus paid to each union member (a total of about $1,200,000), and the possible legal exposure if an arbitrator awards back pay.

Adams estimated the potential back-pay exposure for time-and-one-half over 2.5 years at about $26,000,000 and recommended the board “follow the collective bargaining agreement and let the process play out.” He told directors the matter is now in the contract’s grievance-and-arbitration pipeline and that the board’s best course is to allow arbitration to proceed.

Board members pressed for clarification about the legal status of the 40-hour arrangement and whether federal COVID-relief funds affected pay decisions. Adams said the 40-hour promise was memorialized in a memorandum of understanding and that the union has acknowledged forfeiting time-and-one-half in exchange for the guaranteed hours and the one-time payments. After discussion, Board Member Myers moved to receive the report and let arbitration proceed; the motion was seconded by Vice Chair Josh Wostel and passed unanimously by roll call.

What happens next: the grievance will continue through arbitration under the collective-bargaining agreement; the board will receive the arbitrator’s report when available.