York County Prison v. Int'l. Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 776 (Majority Opinion)

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IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA York County Prison v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 776, Appellant BEFORE: : : : : : : : No. 2143 C.D. 2006 Argued: June 14, 2007 HONORABLE BERNARD L. McGINLEY, Judge, (P.) HONORABLE JAMES GARDNER COLINS, Senior Judge1 HONORABLE JAMES R. KELLEY, Senior Judge OPINION NOT REPORTED MEMORANDUM OPINION BY SENIOR JUDGE KELLEY FILED: January 30, 2008 International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 776 (Union) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County (Trial Court) which vacated an arbitration award previously entered in Union s favor. We affirm. York County Prison (Prison) administered a voluntary K-9 program in which officers who had purchased a dog, and subsequently had that dog certified, performed various official functions at the Prison. The officers participating in the 1 The decision in this case was reached after the date that Judge Colins assumed the status of senior judge. program received an hourly stipend, plus compensation for time spent in training sessions, and two and a half hours of pay per week2 for animal care activities. In 2001, the Union participated in interest arbitration for a new contract, which yielded as part of the award a doubling of the compensation for the care and feeding of K-9 officers animals. Resultantly, the Prison s cost of maintaining the K-9 program increased dramatically. Thereafter, on November 21, 2001, Warden Thomas Hogan issued a memorandum reducing the K-9 unit by 50% due to the increased cost. As a result, three officers were removed from the K-9 unit as of November 30, 2001. Thereafter, Warden Hogan issued another memo noting that because an agreement on concessions from the K-9 unit could not be reached, the program s operation would be suspended. K-9 Officers Fred Wilson and Joseph Thevenin filed various grievances related to the reductions in the K-9 program between November 2001 and January 2002, which grievances the Prison denied. The Union did not, however, list the grievances for arbitration until February 16, 2005. In that intervening period, the parties entered into an interest arbitration process for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) effective January 1, 2004. The Union raised the Warden s K-9 unit actions as one issue therein, and Arbitrator Jane Rigler, in her arbitration award, stated that no violation of any agreement had occurred in regards to reducing the K-9 unit. Further, the 2 The animal care pay was a result of a settlement of a 1999 action by the K-9 officers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219. 2. arbitration panel did not reinstate the K-9 unit, and did not require any minimum number of officers to participate therein. Following an ensuing arbitration hearing on the grievances, Arbitrator Margaret Brogan issued an opinion on February 26, 2006, in which she framed two issues: whether the grievances were arbitrable, and whether the Prison violated the contract and/or applicable state law in disbanding the K-9 unit, and if so, what remedy was appropriate. Arbitrator Brogan concluded that the grievances were arbitrable, and that the Prison, as a public employer, maintained a managerial prerogative to disband the K-9 unit absent any language to the contrary in the CBA. However, Arbitrator Brogan also concluded that the Prison was legally obligated to engage in bargaining over the effects of the decision to disband the unit pursuant to the Public Employe Relations Act (Act 195), Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 1101.101-1101.2301,3 and that the Prison had failed to do so. 3 Arbitrator Brogan cited to Section 702 of Act 195, 43 P.S. §1101.702, which reads: Matters not subject to bargaining Public employers shall not be required to bargain over matters of inherent managerial policy, which shall include but shall not be limited to such areas of discretion or policy as the functions and programs of the public employer, standards of services, its overall budget, utilization of technology, the organizational structure and selection and direction of personnel. Public employers, however, shall be required to meet and discuss on policy matters affecting wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment as well as the impact thereon upon request by public employe representatives. 3. Arbitrator Brogan concomitantly ordered the Prison to pay the K-9 officers five hours of pay per week for the period of time from when each officer was eliminated from the K-9 unit, until the date of Arbitrator Rigler s award. She also ordered the Prison to reimburse the officers for reasonable medical expenses for their animals for the same time period. On March 27, 2006, the Prison filed a Petition to Vacate Arbitration Award (Petition) in the Trial Court. The Union answered, and filed new matter, and the case was subsequently briefed and argued. By order dated October 19, 2006, the Trial Court vacated Arbitrator Brogan s Award, concluding inter alia that the Award did not draw its essence from the terms of the CBA between the parties, and noting the Arbitrator s reliance upon Act 195, and not the CBA. In so doing, the Trial Court held, the Arbitrator exceeded the jurisdiction conferred upon her by the CBA. The Union now appeals to this Court from the Trial Court s order. This Court s standard of review of a grievance arbitration award is one of deference to the award. Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania v. Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, 916 A.2d 736 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2007). It is well settled that our scope of review of a grievance arbitration award is the essence test. Id. In State System of Higher Education (Cheyney University) v. State College University Professional Association (PSEA-NEA), 560 Pa. 135, 149-150, 743 A.2d 405, 413 (1999), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court set forth the essence test standard for courts to follow in reviewing challenges to an arbitrator's award: 4. [T]here is a strong presumption that the Legislature and the parties intended for an arbitrator to be the judge of disputes under a collective bargaining agreement. That being the case, courts must accord great deference to the award of the arbitrator chosen by the parties.... The arbitrator's award must draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. Pursuant to the essence test as stated today, a reviewing court will conduct a twoprong analysis. First, the court shall determine if the issue as properly defined is within the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. Second, if the issue is embraced by the agreement, and thus, appropriately before the arbitrator, the arbitrator's award will be upheld if the arbitrator's interpretation can rationally be derived from the collective bargaining agreement. That is to say, a court will only vacate an arbitrator's award where the award indisputably and genuinely is without foundation in, or fails to logically flow from, the collective bargaining agreement. (Footnotes omitted; emphasis added.) In the instant matter, the Union presents five issues for review: A. Whether the Trial Court erred in determining that the Arbitration Award did not draw its essence from the CBA; B. Whether the Trial Court erred in reinterpreting the Arbitrator s application of the Management Prerogatives clause of the CBA; C. Whether the Trial Court erred in determining that the Arbitrator relied solely on Act 195, and not the essence of the CBA; D. Whether the Trial Court erred in not awarding attorney fees, and; E. Whether the Trial Court erred in refusing to enforce the Arbitrator s Award. We will address each of these issues seriatim. 5. The Union s first three issues all relate, to varying degrees, to the application of the essence test to the facts at hand. The Union first argues that the Trial Court erred in its application of the essence test, citing most generally to our Supreme Court s well-established holding that, under the essence test, an arbitrator s award will be enforced if the award can, in any rational way, be derived from the parties collective bargaining agreement. Cheyney University. Citing to the CBA in the matter sub judice, the Union emphasizes that the CBA obligates the Prison to reimburse K-9 officers for K-9 unit expenses.4 Union asserts that expenses related to the ongoing care of the dogs still exist for the officers notwithstanding the Warden s disbanding of the unit, and that those ongoing expenses lend ongoing necessity for the Prison s obligation. Further, the Union asserts that the CBA created a class of specialized employees who receive $.50 per hour more than other employees without the specialization.5 The Union emphasizes that the Prison failed to reach an agreement with the Union prior to eliminating, and/or demoting, that entire class of bargaining unit employees, without just cause. Therefore, argues the Union, the Arbitrator had sufficient authority to craft an award purely based upon the fact that the subject matter was contained in the CBA. The Union s arguments on this issue, however, fail to recognize the threshold issue herein: whether the Arbitrator exceeded the jurisdiction conferred 4 See Article 24, Section 10, of the CBA, Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 65a. 5 Id. 6. upon her by the CBA in relying upon Act 195 for her actions. The crux of the Prison s argument on this threshold issue, as argued before both the Trial Court and this Court, is that the Arbitrator s award drew its essence not from the CBA provisions as advocated by the Union, but from, exclusively, state law namely, Act 195. We agree with the Trial Court s cogent and detailed analysis of this issue: Section 1(a) of Article 20 of the collective bargaining agreement defines a grievance as an alleged breach of this Agreement or a dispute arising out of the interpretation or application of provisions of this agreement. [R.R. at 61a.] Section 2(a) of the collective bargaining agreement goes on to define the scope of the grievance procedure. That section reads: Any matter not specifically covered by any provision of this Agreement, as well as any matter reserved to the discretion of the County by statutes, legal precedents and regulations of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and/or by the terms of this Agreement is not a grievance and will not be construed as a grievance. [R.R. at 61a.] In addition Article 3 of the collective bargaining agreement includes a management prerogatives clause, which grants the Prison the right to make determinations concerning personnel, programs and budgeting: The Management of the County operations and the discretion of the working force is vested exclusively in the Employer and includes, but is not limited to the right to hire, suspend, discipline or discharge for proper cause, or transfer, and the right to relieve employees from duty because of lack of work or for other legitimate reasons under this Agreement; make and enforce rules of conduct; select supervisory and management personnel; introduce new or improved methods, 7. equipment or facilities or to change existing methods or facilities; determine the total employment requirements, hours of work required for a particular operation and job assignments and job classification of personnel; establish functions, programs, budgets, organizational structure and standards of service and performance. [R.R. at 45a-46a.] Based on the aforementioned sections of the collective bargaining agreement, we believe that Arbitrator Brogan exceeded her authority by determining there was a violation of state law. By terms of the collective bargaining agreement, a grievance is limited in scope to violations of the Agreement. Arbitrator Brogan, in making her determination, relied on state law, which is certainly outside the scope of the agreement. In her Opinion, Arbitrator Brogan states: The first substantive issue presented is whether the Prison was free, in line with the discretion granted by contract and statute, to eliminate the K-9 positions for those individuals within the bargaining unit. In our opinion, the Employer did have that discretion. There is nothing in either the current contract between the parties or its precursor which grants the entitlement to the bargaining unit of a minimum number of employees performing K-9 duties. She goes on to state it has been held that a public employer is privileged to make such personnel changes, in the absence of contract language limiting such managerial authority. Since Arbitrator Brogan determined that the reduction of the K-9 unit was a matter reserved to the discretion of the County under the Management Prerogatives clause, her inquiry should have stopped. By the terms of the collective bargaining agreement she was not allowed to review matters of state law since it was not covered in the Agreement and as such was not considered a grievance or construed as a grievance. Her determination that it was a violation of statute by not engaging in effects bargaining, therefore, did not draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. As such, the award must be vacated. 8. Trial Court Opinion at 7-8. We agree with the Trial Court, in that the Arbitrator s foundational conclusion - that the elimination of the positions at issue was within the Prison s discretion as granted by the CBA - represents the jurisdictional ending point of her inquiry under the standard of Cheney University. The Union s arguments regarding the effects of remaining expenses, and the impact of the unit s elimination upon the K-9 officers, go to the effects of the Prison s rightful exercise of its discretion. We will address the import of those effects below. The Union next argues that the Trial Court erred in reinterpreting the Arbitrator s application of the Management Prerogatives clause of Article 3 of the CBA. We disagree. Quite plainly, and with express, unambiguous language, the Management Prerogatives clause of the CBA grants the Prison exclusive authority to make determinations concerning personnel, programs, and budgeting. R.R. at 10a-11a, 45a-46a. The Prison's determinations in this matter were direct determinations concerning personnel, programs, and budgeting, and thusly were an exercise of the Prison's clear discretion over those areas in relation to the K-9 program. We emphasize that Arbitrator Brogan expressly advanced this same interpretation, and that the Trial Court did not therefore reinterpret her application of the Management Prerogatives clause at issue. Opinion of Arbitrator Brogan at 6-8. It was Arbitrator Brogan s actions beyond that interpretation that were error, as the Trial Court correctly concluded. As the Trial Court s foregoing well reasoned response to this issue makes clear, Arbitrator Brogan s determination that the Prison s reduction of the K-9 unit force was founded in the CBA s Management Prerogatives clause brought 9. her to the edge of her limited jurisdiction as expressly conferred by the CBA; the Arbitrator s foray into any potential violation of Act 195 exceeded that jurisdiction, under the plain terms of the CBA. By definition, as well as under her own plain language in stating the sources in which she founded her actions, Arbitrator Brogan s interpretation was not rationally derived solely from the CBA, and her award was indisputably and genuinely without foundation in, and did not logically flow from, the CBA. Cheyney University; Slippery Rock University. In a related argument, the Union next asserts that the Prison misapplied the Management Prerogatives clause, in that it eliminated the K-9 unit for retaliatory and/or discriminatory purposes. On this point, the Union emphasizes Arbitrator Brogan s language articulating her opinion that had the unit elimination been for purely economic reasons stemming solely from the increase in cost to the Prison, then a reduction to a force size equivalent to the prior budget level would have been more appropriate than a complete elimination of the unit. Opinion of Arbitrator Brogan at 7-8. Additionally, Arbitrator Brogan references the Warden s attempts to pressure individual unit members to accept a reduced rate of pay, and notes that these attempts smack of an attempt at unlawful direct dealing with employees. . . Id. at 8. Notwithstanding those articulations, however, Arbitrator Brogan next writes that although the Prison was privileged to make the personnel changes at issue under the CBA, its sole failure was its failure to bargain about the effects of its unilateral change, which Arbitrator Brogan 10. concluded was a violation of Section 702 of Act 195, 43 P.S. §1101.702.6 The Union argues that these effects of the Prison s elimination of the K-9 unit namely changing the officers pay, working conditions, and reimbursements fall into the realm of grievances as defined in the CBA, and are thusly grounded therein. As for the Union s grievance argument on this point, we disagree. Such a reading of the CBA would, in effect, eviscerate the Management Prerogatives clause, as any exercise of the discretion granted to the Prison therein would invariably qualify as a generalized grievance under the Union s proffered reading. Such an interpretation would render that clause mere surplusage, an interpretation surely not intended by either party to the CBA.7 Further, we have previously held that a collective bargaining agreement with a substantively identical grievance definition to that at issue herein did not encompass state law violations, or, dispositively on this issue, matters reserved to the discretion of the prison. See County of Allegheny v. Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union, 341 A.2d 578 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1975). 6 Section 702 reads, in relation to this point: Public employers, however, shall be required to meet and discuss on policy matters affecting wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment as well as the impact thereon upon request by public employe representatives. 7 We again emphasize that Arbitrator Brogan s own language acknowledges the founding of the unit s elimination in the Prison's rightful use of its discretion under the CBA, notwithstanding her unexplained contradiction, a mere few paragraphs later, in asserting a violation of the CBA on this very point. To view a rightful exercise of the CBA s express grant of discretion as a simultaneous violation of the CBA is an absurd and contradictory construction that defies the plain language of the CBA. 11. As for the Union's reliance upon Arbitrator Brogan s assertion that the Prison s actions violated Section 702 of Act 195, regardless of any exercise of its discretion under the CBA, again Arbitrator Brogan has exceeded her limited jurisdiction over the essence of the CBA. The only violation Arbitrator Brogan found was a failure to bargain over the effects of the Prison s elimination of the positions at issue. Opinion of Arbitrator Brogan at 9, 11. The CBA does not require such effects bargaining. As a matter not specifically covered by the CBA, therefore, any such failure to bargain over those effects is not a grievance under the express and unambiguous terms of Section 2(a) of Article 20 of the CBA. R.R. at 61a. Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union. To the extent that any Prison actions at issue in the wake of its personnel changes required effects bargaining under Act 195, no foundation in the essence of the CBA exists, and that reliance upon state law violation was beyond Arbitrator Brogan s reach in this matter. Cheyney University; Slippery Rock University; Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union. To the extent that the Union s argument on this issue, as well as Arbitrator s Brogan s view of the rationale behind the Prison's actions, implicate an unfair labor practice, we emphasize that it is well established that the redress of an unfair labor practice falls under the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB). Section 1301 of Act 195,8 43 P.S. 8 Section 1301 of Act 195 reads: Exclusive power in board to prevent unfair practices (Continued....) 12. §1101.1301; Hollinger v. Department of Public Welfare, 469 Pa. 358, 365 A.2d 1245 (1976) (If the remedy sought is redress of an unfair labor practice, then the PLRB is vested with exclusive original jurisdiction by Section 1301). Finally, the Union presents two remaining issues: whether the Trial Court erred in not awarding attorney fees, based upon the Union s assertion that the Prison s appeal was without merit and in bad faith, and; whether the Trial Court erred in refusing to enforce the Arbitrator s Award, based upon the Union s reliance upon the merits of its foregoing arguments. In light of our analysis and disposition of the Union s prior arguments, these remaining issues are without merit, and require no further address. Accordingly, we affirm. _________________________________ JAMES R. KELLEY, Senior Judge Judge McGinley dissents. The [PLRB] is empowered, as hereinafter provided, to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair practice listed in Article XII of this act. This power shall be exclusive and shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that have been or may be established by agreement, law, or otherwise. 13. IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA York County Prison v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 776, Appellant : : : : : : : No. 2143 C.D. 2006 ORDER AND NOW, this 30th day of January, 2008, the order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County, dated October 19, 2006, at No. 2006-SU-00993Y01, is affirmed. _________________________________ JAMES R. KELLEY, Senior Judge

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