NAGE Members Receive $47,000 in Back Pay
August 11, 2008
Twenty-four present and former UMass Medical School employees who were wrongfully refused pay increases will receive a total of over $47,000 in back pay, thanks to NAGE attorney Rebecca Proakis. Earlier this year, an arbitrator ordered the UMass Medical School to pay wage increases retroactively to those Local 300 employees for work they performed in 2004 and 2005.
All of the employees specified in the arbitration will receive back pay in awards ranging from $122 to $5,248, with the typical award ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Awards to 17 former employees total over $30,000, while awards to the seven affected current employees add up to over $16,000.
Proakis, who represented the union at arbitration, said, “These employees were promised verbally and in written form these financial incentives. But soon after, the employer saw an angle by which he could exclude these employees who left the unit, and tried to exploit it. NAGE was there to say no and really enforce the promise, and it made all the difference.”
Local 300 was formed in February 2004 when certain employees were transferred from EOHHS to the UMass Medical School (UMMS). NAGE 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 contract negotiator, 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. NAGE 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.
In September 2006, members who were no longer employed by UMMS reported to NAGE 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, 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.”