NAGE Arbitration Win Awards Members Back Pay
April 4, 2008
An arbitrator has ordered the UMass Medical School to pay wage increases retroactively to employees who were wrongfully refused the increases for work performed in 2004 and 2005. The arbitrator found that the university had violated NAGE Local 300’s February 26, 2004 contract and its successor Memorandum of Agreement dated September 18, 2006.
NAGE attorney Rebecca Proakis, who represented the union said, “This was an important contract interpretation case that the Union had to bring forward and fight with its utmost. It directly affected wages, but most importantly, defied the very essence of bargaining and the process and care in creating a promise—a contract. Since the Union did not have a long-standing relationship with the UMMS, and since this was the creation of a new unit, there was every reason to proceed and articulate who we are, what we bargained, and stand by it. We were rewarded for our insistence, and the promise we made on behalf of our members was fulfilled.”
Local 300 was formed in February 2004 when certain employees were transferred from EOHHS to the UMass Medical School (UMMS). The Union and UMMS negotiated an agreement covering terms and conditions of employment, including union members’ right to participate in a merit pay program that already existed for non-Union employees.
Union members received their first merit pay adjustments in June 2005, but soon learned that non-Union employees had received merit pay much earlier, in April 2004. When NAGE’s Chief Negotiator of the contracts, Kevin Preston, raised the issue with the University, he was told that the Union members did not qualify for merit pay in 2004 because they had not been employed prior to October 1, 2003. The Union and the University were able to work out a resolution to the immediate issue, and many members were paid appropriately. However, the Union later learned that UMMS did not pay all of the members.
Namely in September 2006, the Union began to receive calls from members who were no longer employed by the University, and who reported that the University had not given them retroactive pay for the time they had been in the bargaining unit.
The University claimed the employees were not entitled to the retroactive merit pay adjustments because they had left the bargaining unit.
At arbitration, Attorney Proakis argued that the February 2004 and September 2006 contract language was clear and unambiguous and that all members were deserving of these monies as negotiated. The arbitrator agreed.
In her award, Arbitrator Mary Ellen Shea wrote, “The language is not confusing … The words used are clear and straightforward … There is nothing to suggest that some event at a later date (such as leaving the bargaining unit) makes an employee ineligible for retroactive pay.”