Opinion ID: 2086340
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: In private employment in comparable communities.

Text: With respect to this factor, the panel reviewed evidence comparing Detroit police officers' salaries and fringe benefits to those of Detroit metropolitan area communities, as well as to large, out-of-state cities. The panel found the former the more appropriate, since not only is there a lack of comparability of conditions in other major cities, but it is against these nearby communities that Detroit must compete for police officers. The panel also relied on the recent LSA award for comparison since the LSA was the only other group of Detroit employees performing services similar to those of the DPOA. In short, the panel found the more apt and persuasive comparisons for purposes of this factor to be with other city security personnel, and not with other city employees in general. The panel did not consider comparisons with private employment persuasive and therefore did not base any of its conclusions upon such comparisons. Factor 5: The average consumer prices for goods and services, commonly known as the cost of living. The panel regarded as of importance testimony concerning the need for and use of a COLA provision as a not unusual means, in the public sector, of providing some protection to the real wage position, as well as the standard of living, of both wage and salary workers during inflationary periods. Thus the panel determined that with an expected increase in the cost of living from 6% to 8% a year during the three years of the new contract, the COLA requested by the DPOA would only afford 50% to 80% protection. Factor 6: The overall compensation presently received by the employees, including direct wage compensation, vacations, holidays and other excused time, insurance and pensions, medical and hospitalization benefits, the continuity and stability of employment, and all other benefits received. It was very significant to the panel that the DPOA's last offer respecting COLA merely represented a continuation of the COLA provision that had been won by the DPOA in the collective bargaining agreement which expired at the end of June, 1977. In adopting the DPOA's COLA proposal, the panel simply opted for a maintenance of the status quo regarding that provision. Factor 7: Changes in any of the foregoing circumstances during the pendency of the arbitration proceedings. The development of primary importance to the panel was the award in the LSA arbitration case handed down October 18, 1978 by the Howlett panel. As noted earlier, in relevant part this award granted the LSA a COLA provision essentially the same as that put forth in the DPOA's last offer. The LSA award was of considerable importance to the instant panel in fashioning its own award since the panel was intent on maintaining the historic relationship between the compensation of police officers below the rank of sergeant and those above. Factor 8: Such other factors, not confined to the foregoing, which are normally or traditionally taken into consideration in the determination of wages, hours and conditions of employment through voluntary collective bargaining, mediation, fact-finding, arbitration or otherwise between the parties, in the public service or in private employment. The panel noted that the parties had not specifically delineated in their presentations any other factors. Therefore, the only other factor which the panel relied on was morale. As noted under our discussion of the third factor, the panel believed that the maintenance of high police morale was an important factor to be considered in rendering its award. Briefly summarizing the panel's application of § 9 in rendering its award on the economic issues in dispute, the panel determined that the interests of the public in high police morale could more effectively be insured by a preservation of the previous COLA arrangements. Since the panel had adopted the city's proposal that the contract run for three years, as opposed to the DPOA's proposal of a two-year contract, the panel was persuaded of the necessity of such a COLA provision to maintain some partial shield against the unforeseeable erosion of an officer's wage position by inflation that could occur over such an extended period. Also of concern to the panel in the maintenance of the COLA provision was the recognition of the DPOA's relationship to the LSA. Central to this award was the city's failure to plead or establish a position of inability to pay or to introduce its budget [69] indicating what curtailment of services would be necessitated by the DPOA's last COLA offer. Given the fact that the wage issue was inextricably related to that of COLA, the panel, having opted for the COLA proposal of the DPOA, then chose the lower of the two wage proposals; it chose the DPOA's proposed 4-1/2%, 4% and 3-1/2% wage increase in each of the three years of the contract as compared to the city's proposed 4.8%, 4% and 4% [70] wage increase in each of those same three years. While we recognize that the city's wage proposal was higher than that of the DPOA due to the city's lack of (or, in the case of its Plan II, a minor) COLA proposal, the fact remains that having accepted the DPOA COLA proposal, the panel then awarded the lower of the two wage proposals. In light of the foregoing analysis, we find the panel's award of the DPOA's last offers on the contested economic items to have been supported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record. One final argument of the city remains to be discussed with respect to the arbitration panel's economic award. The city asserts that the panel's award should be vacated due to the panel's refusal to admit into evidence City's Exhibit 30. This exhibit was intended to show the cost impact of any award made by the instant panel on COLA and wages, relative to the DFFA and the LSA. In short, the city argued that such an award would affect the DFFA since the city had already agreed in another Act 312 arbitration proceeding to a parity agreement, respecting certain economic benefits, between the police officer and the fire fighter, the police sergeant and the fire lieutenant, and the police lieutenant and the fire captain. The effect on the lieutenant's and sergeant's bargaining unit inhered in the fact that the previous contract between the city and the LSA, as well as the proposed one before an Act 312 arbitration panel at the time Exhibit 30 was offered, provided that the lieutenant's and sergeant's pay would be a percentage of that of a police officer. The city's argument, then, was that Exhibit 30 was relevant, as one piece of evidence under the third factor of § 9, to the extent that it illustrated the ramification of any COLA or wage award of the instant panel on total cost to the city on the total budget, and the ability of the city to pay. At the time Exhibit 30 was offered, the chairman of the panel, per the parties' pre-hearing statement, exercised his responsibility for ruling on evidentiary and procedural matters and declined to receive the exhibit. He did so on the grounds that its admission was premature since the Act 312 arbitration proceedings involving the fire fighters and the lieutenants and sergeants had not then been concluded. Preliminarily, we stress that this Court is not constituted some super-arbitrator to oversee and redirect the arbitral process when our opinion may differ with a panel's on such an evidentiary/procedural matter as this. Section 6 of the act explicitly accords a wide degree of latitude to the panel in the introduction of evidence. It is true that the [t]echnical rules of evidence do not apply to the hearings; however, the panel may receive into evidence any oral or documentary evidence and other data deemed relevant by it. In view of such discretion reposed in the panel on this matter, our review is limited to the determination of whether, in this instance, the exclusion of City's Exhibit 30 was so egregious as to cause the award of the panel on the contested economic issues to be unsupported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record. The arbitration panel was well-informed on the cost of its award to the city. In making the disputed evidentiary ruling, the panel chairman observed: [Y]our panel is composed of persons who are knowledgeable and sophisticated as far as public affairs generally, and indeed about labor relations matters. And, what everybody else knows, we are charged with knowing. I know the cost, and everyone on the panel, everyone sitting out there is very conscious of the fact cost is of consideration. We're not naive, and we're not unmindful of costs. More specifically, we find the following in the majority panel's decision: The panel cannot escape the history of the city in its relations with its unions, not only as evidenced by contractual undertakings but by actions of the electorate from time to time. For years there has been a correlation between benefits of police and fire personnel, commonly referred to as security personnel.    After years of debate, both the general electorate and in collective bargaining, the principle of parity was established between police and fire. Even more interestingly, there is a correlation to a degree between certain positions in the Fire Department and positions among the Lieutenants and Sergeants. As indicated earlier, the chairman is of the opinion that this panel cannot remake or change history nor can it escape the history the parties themselves have made, that is, of certain internal relationships in comparisons between and among Lieutenants and Sergeants and DPOA members as well as between and among these groups or bargaining units and the fire fighters. In light of the foregoing, the exclusion of City's Exhibit 30 from evidence cannot be said to have caused the economic award to be unsupported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record. Accordingly, we reaffirm our holding as to the validity of the economic award.