CONTRACT UPDATE
Arbitrator: self recording OK; time clocks off limits

By SHERRY HALBROOK
The state always had the right under the PS&T contract to require employees to report their precise times of arrival at and departure from work, according to the arbitrator’s decision in PEF’s contract grievance over timekeeping changes at the state Transportation Department.

The arbitrator affirmed the contract does not give the state the right to use a time clock to record an employee’s arrival or departure time. However, Arbitrator Tia Denenberg also found the requirement that an employee record specific start and end times is consistent with the requirement to record “actual hours worked” — language that has been part of the PS&T contract since 1972.

“There is no intrinsic conflict between being a professional and reporting one’s in and out times, even though employees may prefer giving a cumulative figure for hours worked,” Denenberg said.

She added, however, that “recording start and finish times no doubt could facilitate surveillance practices that might breach the ban on timekeeping in (contract) Article 12.17. But the union may challenge any improprieties of that kind, if they occur, as a separate matter.”

“This decision confirms what PEF has said all along — that we did not bargain away in the 1999-2003 contract our members’ rights regarding timekeeping,” said PEF Director of Labor Relations Roger Scales.

“The only change to contract Article 12.17 we negotiated allowed the state to require overtime ineligible employees to follow the same procedures as those who are overtime eligible,” Scales said. “And the arbitrator has validated that. This change in the contract imposed no new reporting obligation on overtime eligible employees.”

The uproar started in late 2000 when the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations sent a memo to state agencies asserting that timekeeping rules and procedures for PS&T employees had changed substantially because of the new contract language.

This was followed on November 11, 2000, by a bulletin issued by the state Transportation Department (DOT) directing all of its PS&T unit employees to record their specific arrival and departure times. PEF grieved this significant change from the previous procedures for overtime eligible employees, claiming it violated the contract.

The arbitrator, whose decision is binding, denied PEF’s grievance because, she said, the contract’s language had always allowed the state to make these changes.

Denenberg said the fact that in 2000 DOT substantially changed its 30-year-old practice of allowing PS&T employees to simply report their total hours worked each day did not mean the state had to negotiate that change with the union.

“Longevity alone is no entitlement to permanence,” Denenberg said. “A practice becomes binding only when there is compelling evidence the employer consciously acquiesced and agreed, at least implicitly, to regard it as immutable.”

With the new insights provided by this arbitration decision, PEF is reviewing more than a dozen grievances it has filed regarding timekeeping changes at other state agencies to see if any of them should go to arbitration.

The bargaining teams will continue to meet throughout the fall. For weekly updates, visit the PEF Web site at www.pef.org and click on the orange contract button.

You may also receive weekly Active Informed Member (AIM) updates to your home by sending your e-mail address to PEF. Register here on the PEF Member Network.

Click on pefonline@pef.org


To learn about future topics at the bargaining table, members are invited to visit the FAQ section on that Web page.

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