Case Title: Grievance of West

Citation: 165 Vt 445, 685 A.2d 1099

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1996-09-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re West  (95-564); 165 Vt 445; 685 A.2d 1099

[Opinion Filed 13-Sep-1996]


       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                 No. 95-564


Grievance of Ronald West and                      Supreme Court
Merill Cray
                                                  On Appeal from
                                                  Labor Relations Board

                                                  April Term, 1996


Charles H. McHugh, Chairman

       Samuel C. Palmisano, VSEA Legal Counsel, and Mark Heyman, Law Clerk
  (On the Brief), Montpelier, for grievants-appellees

       Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, F. Michael Seibert and David
  Herlihy, Assistant Attorney General, Montpelier, for appellant State of
  Vermont


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


       GIBSON, J.   The State of Vermont appeals an order of the Vermont
  Labor Relations Board requiring the State to provide information to the
  Vermont State Employees' Association, Inc. (VSEA) for use in bringing a
  classification grievance.  We affirm.

       The facts are not in dispute.  The Office of the Secretary of State
  employs grievants West and Cray as investigators in the Office of
  Professional Regulation (OPR).  Following a 1990 classification review by
  the Department of Personnel, the position of OPR investigator was renamed
  "licensing board investigator" (LBI) and separated into three levels, LBI I
  (Pay Grade 17), LBI II (Pay Grade 18), and LBI III (Pay Grade 19);
  grievants are both classified as LBI IIIs.

       In December 1993, the Secretary of State filed a request for
  classification review (RFR) that recommended elevating all licensing board
  investigators to Pay Grade 22, which is the pay grade assigned to
  investigators employed by the Office of the Attorney General.  At an April
  1994 meeting with classification analysts from the Department, grievants
  argued that their

 

  positions were fully comparable to the Attorney General's investigators and
  should receive the same pay grade.  The analysts reached a preliminary
  conclusion that licensing board investigators, including grievants, should
  receive Pay Grade 19.

       In early 1994, the Department appointed a so-called "benchmark
  committee" to conduct, for internal purposes only, classification reviews
  of entire occupational groups or classes.  As its first project, the
  committee was instructed to review all investigator positions in state
  service. The Department hired Norman Willis, a personnel consultant, to
  train the benchmark committee to conduct the reviews.  An investigator in
  the Attorney General's Office learned of the committee's work and filed a
  grievance with the Department, which ordered the internal review suspended
  until further notice.

       The benchmark committee, however, continued its assignment as a
  training exercise and completed a classification review of all positions in
  the investigator class.  The committee recommended that the Department
  upgrade some investigator positions and downgrade others, and further
  recommended that all licensing board investigators in OPR be consolidated
  into a single class and assigned Pay Grade 19.  On June 13, 1994, the
  Department's operations director forwarded the committee's recommendations
  to the Commissioner of Personnel and to Norman Willis.  In a June 27, 1994
  letter to the operations director, Willis noted that he had reviewed the
  committee's work and reached similar conclusions.

       On August 4, 1994, the Department notified grievants that the
  classification review, conducted in response to the Secretary of State's
  RFR, had resulted in the consolidation of all licensing board investigators
  into a single class at Pay Grade 19; grievants' pay grade therefore
  remained the same.  According to the Employee Notice Forms that grievants
  received:

        The rating assigned to the Secretary of State's investigators fits well
     into the entire range of investigative classes which were reviewed.
     These ratings fall into three broad categories:

                  Positions which deal primarily with paper record reviews
               received a rating of pay grade 17.

                  Positions which must proceed beyond paperwork to the
               interviewing of witnesses and the analysis of other physical

 

               evidence were assigned to pay grade 19.

                  Positions which, in addition to investigations, are required
               to do more than the investigative nature of their job and have
               more complex roles in the respective departments.

          The Secretary of State's Investigators are most appropriately
          considered as part of the middle group (pay grade 19).


  (Emphasis added.)

       Pursuant to Article 16 § 3(d) of its 1994-96 collective bargaining
  agreement with the State (Agreement), VSEA requested an informal meeting
  with the Department's operations director to discuss the classification
  decision.  In that meeting, VSEA learned for the first time that the
  classification review and recommendations had come from the benchmark
  committee, and that Norman Willis had reviewed the committee's work and
  made the same recommendation.

       On August 21, 1994, VSEA asked the Department to provide it with all
  materials that Willis had used to review the committee's work.  The
  Department sent the VSEA copies of materials used by the benchmark
  committee and by Willis to reach their recommendations. These materials
  were redacted, however, to eliminate references to state investigator
  positions in departments other than OPR, because the Department did not
  wish the benchmark committee's internal recommendations made public until
  the Department had acted upon those recommendations.

       In November 1994, the VSEA filed a grievance with the Department,
  alleging that the Department violated the Agreement by failing to provide
  VSEA with all information used by the Commissioner during the
  classification review.(FN1)  The Department denied the grievance, and
  pursuant to Article 16 of the Agreement, VSEA filed the instant grievance
  with the Board.

       The Board held two days of hearings on April 27 and May 4, 1995.  At
  the April 27

 

  hearing, the State moved to dismiss the grievance for lack of
  subject-matter jurisdiction. Grievants moved to amend the grievance to
  allege violation of Article 6(5) of the Agreement, which provides, in
  relevant part:

     5.  The State will also provide such additional information as is
     reasonably necessary to serve the needs of the VSEA as exclusive
     bargaining agent and which is neither confidential nor privileged under
     law.  Access to such additional information shall not be unreasonably
     denied.  Failure to provide information as required under this Article
     may be grieved through the grievance procedure to the Vermont Labor
     Relations Board . . . .

  (Emphasis added.)  By order dated September 29, 1995, the Board granted
  grievants' motion to amend, and concluded that the State had violated
  Article 6(5) by failing to provide VSEA with information concerning
  investigator positions in other state agencies.  The present appeal
  followed.

       Interpretations of collective bargaining agreements are within the
  particular expertise of the Board, and we review such interpretations with
  great deference to the Board's expertise. In re Vermont State Employees'
  Ass'n, ___ Vt. ___, ___,