YSU union challenges cut in pay to ACE chief

By Harold Gwin

Photo

Ivan Maldonado

The classified employee union accuses the university of breach of contract.

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University has made good on its plan to reduce the pay of the president of its Association of Classified Employees union to bring it in line with a state job classification plan.

The 380-member union has challenged the action with two labor grievances.

ACE had warned that a unilateral change of the contract by the university would result in a quick response from the employee group.

The university reduced the pay grade for Ivan Maldonado, a payroll specialist 2, from a pay grade of 36 to a pay grade of 31 effective with the Jan. 2 payroll, said Christine Domhoff, the union’s interim grievance chairman.

The move cuts $21,000 from Maldonado’s annual salary of $82,613.

The pay period covered by that payroll ran from Dec. 7 to Dec. 20, Domhoff said.

Maldonado had been notified earlier that the cut was coming, and the union filed its two grievances over the issue at the end of December, she said.

Both allege breach of contract on the part of the university, she said, adding that no hearing dates on the dispute have been scheduled.

The first grievance is specifically on Maldonado’s behalf regarding the reduction in pay, and the second is on behalf of the entire union, claiming the university unilaterally changed the contract, Domhoff said.

YSU President David C. Sweet notified the university’s board of trustees in early December that the university intended to recover both the back pay and the increase that it believes Maldonado has incorrectly received since May.

Domhoff said the university has so far just gone after Maldonado’s current pay grade and has made no move to recover funds paid to him earlier.

At issue is a job classification schedule that was made part of the new, three-year union contract negotiated in 2008.

University officials and the board of trustees said it was their intent to have a new schedule implemented that matched an existing state job classification schedule, and that’s what they thought the new contract contained. As it turned out, the new YSU schedule didn’t match the state in every category.

Differences came to light when Maldonado was granted a job reclassification that changed his administrative assistant 3 job to payroll specialist 2.

The state schedule showed the job at a pay grade of 31, but the new YSU schedule showed it at pay grade 36, a difference of $21,000 a year. That was a 36 percent pay increase, the university said. Maldonado’s pay grade as administrative assistant 3 was already a 32, Domhoff said.

The university appears to be going only after Maldonado’s salary although there are 19 other ACE employees who have received job reclassifications under the new contract, some with pay increases similar to that given Maldonado, she said. Some of them jumped five pay grades, she said.

There are a couple of other ACE employees who have been assigned by the university to work “out of classification,” doing jobs rated above their current classification, Domhoff said, noting that they have been given pay increases of more than 50 percent.

gwin@vindy.com