Opinion ID: 568491
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Grievance and Unfair Labor Practice Proceedings

Text: 3 The genesis of this litigation was the Bureau of Prisons' discharge of Richard Frontera, a cook-foreman at the federal correctional institution in Ray Brook, New York, for intimidating and physically abusing a prisoner, and for failing to report a possible breach of prison security. 3 Frontera invoked the grievance procedure erected in the union's collective bargaining agreement with the Bureau and the union, on Frontera's behalf, took the matter to arbitration. 4 The arbitrator concluded that Frontera's misconduct warranted discipline but reduced the penalty to a sixty-day suspension, and ordered backpay and reinstatement of Frontera in his regular job thereafter. 5 The Bureau refused to reinstate Frontera at Ray Brook; 6 instead, it assigned him to the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. 7 On the union's application, the arbitrator made clear that Frontera was to be returned to the Ray Brook facility and none other, 8 but the Bureau would not obey. 9 4 The union then lodged with the General Counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) 10 a charge that the Bureau's refusal to comply with the clarified arbitral order was an unfair labor practice. 11 A complaint issued, naming the union as the charging party, and the matter went to hearing before an administrative law judge, 12 who ordered Frontera's reinstatement at Ray Brook with backpay. 13 On appeal, FLRA affirmed, 14 and later was upheld in court. 15