ULP 5761

ULP-5761                     City of Cranston & RI Laborers' District Council                                    3/26/07

Impact: Major
Nominal Beneficiary: Labor
Actual Beneficiary: Labor

Dissent: Goldstein-M, Dolan-M, Jordan-P

The board sided with an arbitrator’s related decision in a separate proceeding on the question of whether an automatic rollover provision in an earlier contract kept the Cranston Crossing Guard Collective Bargaining Agreement in effect for an additional year following its expiration on June 30, 2005. Mayor O’leary’s renegotiated and amended CBA that supplemented and supplanted the existing agreement in various ways but provided that “on June 30, 2005 the provisions of the prior CBA concerning layoffs, furloughs, and staffing will be reinstated.” Thus the question was whether this amounted to a reinstitution of the requirement for 120 days termination notice. The decision relies largely on the arbitrator’s earlier ruling in a separate grievance without examining its reasoning, so it is hard to see how the arbitrator concluded that the issue of automatic termination fell under “layoffs, furloughs, staffing”. There is no discussion of constructive notice although the city seems to argue that the totality of circumstances amounted to notice of contract termination, if it was found that the notice provision was undisturbed. This decision effectively extended the crossing guards’ contract through June 30, 2006, making the city liable for failing to bargain regarding subcontracting those services. The decision focuses on industrial peace as an overriding concern when juxtaposed with fiscal prudence (although it does make reference to the more precipitous fiscal predicament of the city in 2003 and may implicitly endorse the city’s right to eliminate a service without bargaining, but not, on its face, to significantly reduce spending on a service without bargaining.).