Title: In re Whitney

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

In re Whitney  (96-535); 168 Vt. 209; 719 A.2d 875

[Filed 7-Aug-1998]

       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. 96-535

In re Grievance of Warren Whitney, et al.    Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
                                             Labor Relations Board

                                             February Term, 1998

Catherine L. Frank, Chair

       Samuel C. Plamisano, VSEA Legal Counsel, and Mark Heyman, Assistant
  Legal Counsel, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellees.

       William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, and David K. Herlihy, Assistant
  Attorney General, Montpelier, for Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ., and Wesley, Supr.
          J., Specially Assigned

       DOOLEY, J.  The State of Vermont (Department of Public Safety) appeals
  from a ruling of the Vermont Labor Relations Board which granted back pay
  to certain detective investigators (grievants) with the Vermont State
  Police because the State had impermissibly changed the holiday staffing
  schedule.  The back pay award provided compensation for the holidays that
  each grievant would have worked under the prior schedule minus any standby
  and call-out pay the grievants received under the new schedule.  The State
  argues that the Board's decision was erroneous because (1) the holiday
  staffing issue was not properly raised during the grievance process and
  before the Board; (2) grievants' claim is barred by the State Employee
  Labor Relations Act (SELRA); and (3) the back pay award was not tied to
  actual damages suffered by the grievants.  We affirm.

       Prior to June 1, 1995, the detective investigators' work schedules
  consisted of regular Monday through Friday shifts, with weekend coverage
  provided by one officer within each troop

 

  on a rotating basis.  The assigned detective investigator was scheduled to
  be off on Thursday and Friday and to work on Saturday and Sunday.  When a
  detective worked the weekend shift, he received a fifty-dollar premium
  pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement between the State of
  Vermont and the Vermont State Employees' Association, Inc. (VSEA).  In
  addition, a detective who worked a duty weekend also worked any holiday
  that occurred during the following week and received, per the contract,
  holiday compensation of time and one half.

       On June 1, 1995, the director of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation
  unilaterally changed the schedule.  The new schedule required all detective
  investigators to work a regular Monday through Friday week.  Rather than
  having a weekend duty officer, the new schedule provided weekend coverage
  by assigning a designated detective to carry a pager and remain on standby
  status.  The standby detective also covered holidays that occurred during
  the week following the standby weekend.  Detectives assigned to standby
  status on the weekends or holidays received one eighth of their regular pay
  for each hour of standby.  If the detective was called in to work, the
  detective received at least four hours of overtime pay.

       Certain detective investigators opposed the schedule change and,
  through VSEA, filed a grievance with the Department of Personnel (step III
  of the contracted grievance process).  The grievance was not resolved at
  the step III level, and consequently, on September 19, 1995, VSEA filed a
  grievance with the Board.  The grievants contended that the schedule change
  violated Articles 2, 20 and 21 of the collective bargaining agreement and
  deprived them of regularly scheduled days off.  Specifically, grievants
  argued that Article 21, Section 2 of the collective bargaining agreement
  defined the regular work schedule and incorporated the shift schedules
  existing on June 30, 1988.  Thus, they argued that any changes to the work
  schedule must occur through the collective bargaining process and could not
  be unilaterally imposed by management.

       On February 1, 1996, prior to any Board hearing on the grievance, the
  State agreed to return to the schedule that existed prior to June 1, 1995. 
  Nevertheless, grievants went forward

 

  with the Board hearing in an effort to obtain compensation for the days
  they would have been scheduled to work under the previous schedule.  On
  June 14, 1996, the Board issued its findings, opinion and order, holding
  that the State had improperly changed grievants' schedule without use of
  the bargaining process.  It decided that because grievants had been
  compensated for standby status, no financial remedy was appropriate for the
  change in the weekend coverage schedule during the eight months it was in
  effect.  It also decided, however, that compensation was appropriate for
  the holidays that grievants would have worked during that period.  The
  Board's compensation scheme called for dividing the total number of holiday
  hours during the period equally among the fifteen grievants, with each
  grievant being compensated at his or her overtime holiday pay rate.

       VSEA moved to amend the judgment because the State refused to revert
  to the pre-June, 1995 schedule for holiday coverage despite its promise to
  do so.  The State resisted this request, arguing that holiday coverage was
  never part of the grievance.  On this basis and because the remedy provided
  pay for days never worked, it also sought to amend the judgment to strike
  the back pay award for holiday coverage.  The Board sided with VSEA; it
  found that the grievance always covered holiday, as well as weekend,
  scheduling; and it ordered the State to revert to the prior schedule for
  holiday coverage.  It rejected the State s argument that a back pay award
  was improper, but modified its order so that each individual grievant was
  compensated based on holiday hours that the grievant would have worked
  under the previous schedule, less any actual pay received for stand-by and
  call-outs. This appeal followed.

       We begin by noting that the State has not appealed the merits of the
  Board's decision that the unilateral change in the holiday coverage
  schedule, without collective bargaining, violated provisions of the
  contract between VSEA and the State.  Its arguments on appeal are: (1) the
  issue of holiday coverage was not raised in the grievance appeal to the
  Board; (2) the issue of holiday coverage was not raised in earlier steps of
  the grievance process, and, thus, could not be considered by the Board; (3)
  awarding pay for days where work is not needed by the

 

  employer violates SELRA, 3 V.S.A. § 962(7); and (4) the Board cannot award
  back pay for days on which grievants did not actually work.

       The State's first argument is that the issue of holiday staffing was
  not properly raised in the appeal to the Board.  The Board disagreed,
  holding that the issue of holiday staffing was sufficiently raised in the
  grievance and in the evidence presented at the hearing.  Grievants support
  the Board s rationale, adding that if the issue of holiday coverage was not
  raised sufficiently in the grievance, it was tried by the implied consent
  of the parties.

       The Board has the power to specify grievance procedure by rule.  See 3
  V.S.A. §§ 926, 928(a).  Pursuant to this power, the Board has adopted a
  rule requiring that a notice of grievance contain a concise statement of
  the nature of the grievance, references to the specific sections of the
  collective bargaining agreement or rules and regulations alleged to have
  been violated, and a brief statement of facts concerning the grievance. 
  Vermont Labor Relations Bd., Rules of Practice § 18.3(C), (D) & (E); see
  also In re Ulrich, 157 Vt. 290, 293-94, 597 A.2d 314, 315-16 (1991)
  (relying on similar provisions of collective bargaining agreement).  Notice
  is adequate in an administrative proceeding if the parties are sufficiently
  apprised of the nature of the proceeding so that there is no unfair
  surprise.  See In re Vt. Health Service Corp., 155 Vt. 457, 460, 586 A.2d 1145, 1147 (1990).

       We treat the Board s decisions with deference, see In re Towle, 164
  Vt. 145, 148,