Donegal Twp. seeks to have labor arbitrator’s decision overturned
Donegal Township supervisors and members of its road crew who belong to International Union of Operating Engineers Local 66 have a Washington County Court date next week before Judge Michael Lucas.
The township is seeking to vacate, modify or correct the arbitrator’s award regarding the calculation of compensatory time.
The union contends that in the late 1990s when the township was in the throes of financial distress, its members agreed to take compensatory time in lieu of overtime pay as a cost-saving measure.
The township cited a dispute over the number of days to be counted, the length of time over which they can be carried, township policy and federal labor law.
In the form of a grievance, the matter went before a labor arbitrator last November, but the township claims the arbitrator’s decision went beyond contract law.
“The arbitrator went out of his way to make an award in favor of the union that indisputably and genuinely is without foundation or fails to logically flow from and was not derived from the essence of the … collective bargaining agreement,” township solicitors wrote in a document filed with the court.
The judge scheduled a hearing on the dispute for Thursday morning.