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YSU violated pact with ACE, arbiter rules
By HAROLD GWIN
YOUNGSTOWN
A federal arbiter has ruled that Youngstown State University violated its contract with its Association of Classified Employees union when it converted members’ wage rates from an old scale to the Ohio job classification plan.
Lee R. Franklin of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service directed the university to recompute the wage rate of each union member who had a pay-grade change as a result of the 2008 conversion and to pay them the difference in wages and all applicable increases retroactive to Aug. 15, 2008, the effective date of the contract.
Franklin said as many as 200 of the 390 union members might be affected.
Ron Cole, university spokesman, said the university will abide by the arbiter’s ruling and estimates at least 80 employees will be affected. Pay adjustments will range from a few pennies per hour to more than $1 per hour in some cases, he said, adding that no total cost calculation has been completed.
The university and the union agreed to the wage-rate conversion, but how that was to be done was “a gray area,” Cole said. The university “implemented the conversion in a manner we felt was agreed upon,” he said.
The union disagreed and filed a grievance over the issue, and the case wound up in binding arbitration.
In the ruling, Franklin said evidence showed the two parties had agreed to update job classifications following the Ohio State Classification Plan as a guide and eliminate longevity pay in the process.
YSU was paying $220,000 annually in longevity pay to union members and estimated there would be just a one-time cost of $193,000 by making the conversion.
However, testimony presented over the course of two hearings in November and December 2009 showed that the university failed to follow the conversion system worked out by a joint university/union committee, and that violated the contract, Franklin said.
No employee was to be financially hurt by the conversion, but evidence presented shows that some were, Franklin said, adding that was a second violation of the contract agreement.
Franklin said the union presentation of its case was “credible and persuasive” and met the burden of proof.
The university’s presentation was less effective, Franklin said, noting that it failed to produce Craig Bickley, who was director of human resources when the contract was negotiated, and that university witnesses “were equivocal at best.”