Interest arbitration and the need for candor

By John H Curley on April 22, 2018

Arbitrator Richard Miller reopened and reconsidered an interest arbitration between Hennepin County, MN and Law Enforcement Labor Services, Inc., Local No. 393, concluding that the County had “purposely withheld” information that had been requested by the Union.

In the initial proceeding, Arbitrator Miller rejected the Union’s requested wage increase for a unit of Licensed Supervisors, finding:

The Union is not a victim of disparate treatment. All County employees were treated the same. The County’s philosophy on collective bargaining was to offer uniform pay increases and benefit improvements across all bargaining units unless compelled by good evidence to do otherwise. … More importantly, the Employer never deviated from the internal wage pattern unless specific evidence – meeting defined criteria – justified doing so.
Only in those limited cases where attraction or retention problems warranted greater pay did the County voluntarily adjust wages outside the pattern.

Arbitrator Miller’s original award, dated August 1, 2017, can be found here.

The Arbitrator’s conclusion was based in part on the assertions of the County that it had a “strict” practice of rejecting above pattern increases absent a voluntary turnover rate at least twice the County average. The County argued that it “never broke its internal pattern unless specific evidence – meeting defined criteria – justified doing so. No supervisory job class in the county met those criteria”

In preparation for the interest arbitration, the Union had requested information concerning wage increases for other employees. The County responded to the request except that it failed to produce information about above-pattern increases for several non-organized job classes.

The Union subsequently heard about a 7.5% increase, provided to the “non-organized classes of Chief Deputy and Sheriff’s Majors,” a group with no apparent attraction or retention problems, about a month after the Arbitrator had rendered his initial decision. In light of the new information, the County agreed to the Unions request to have the Arbitrator once again review the Union’s request for market adjustments for the Licensed Supervisors.

In his award, Arbitrator Miller noted:

Labor relations is built on trust and honesty between the Parties and not on omission or failure to provide relevant information, which occurred in this case. Unfortunately, this trust was breached by the County. This is very disappointing. While it is true that Mr. Olness and others in his department may not have participated in the decision to grant the 7.5% market adjustments to the Chief Deputy and Majors (as it appears this was done solely by the Sheriff), they knew at the time of the interest arbitration hearing with the Licensed Supervisors that the Chief Deputy and Majors were going to receive this market increase for 2016 with no retention problem. … Yet, the County made a purposeful decision to delay implementing the market adjustment, and not just until after the July 7, 2017 interest arbitration hearing, but until after the arbitration award was issued.

In light of the new evidence that there in fact was not a “uniform policy” regarding market adjustments Arbitrator Miller concluded that the Licensed Supervisors should be treated the same as the Majors and Chief Deputy in terms of comparing their compensation to the external market and awarded a market adjustment he had previously rejected.

Arbitrator Miller’s award on reopening can be found here.