AN ARBITRATOR has ruled that a City of Tacoma employee be reinstated following her layoff in July 2006.

He ordered, too, that she receive back pay from the date of her layoff and all her benefits be restored.

The employee, who worked as a computer systems programmer for the Tacoma Economic Development Department, was among a group of workers laid off when several positions were eliminated in 2005. The positions were eliminated following a request by the City that departments reduce their budgets for the fiscal year 2005-06. The department’s director, Ryan Petty, told the arbitration hearing he had tried to avoid laying off any employees to meet the budget cuts, but had been unable to do so.

He said the grievant was selected for layoff because the City was buying new equipment, including servers from IBM, which would mean a reduction in the work required from the grievant.

The City waited until 2006 to lay her off because a new agreement came into effect in May 2006. A previous agreement had required that the City not lay off any permanent employee.

Council 2, which represented the employee at the hearing, argued that the employee had received grandfathered status in terms of a clause included following a grievance settlement in 1995. The union further argued that the contract provided city-wide bumping rights. Otherwise, the bumping language would be meaningless.

Testimony was presented to show that the negotiated intent of the contract language was to give City-wide bumping rights. In addition, the union contended that the grievant was entitled to bump the least senior grandfathered person among those employees subject to the grandfather clause.

The City argued that the grandfather clause did not apply to the grievant. They also denied that City-wide bumping rights were covered by the contract.

The arbitrator, Michael H. Beck, agreed with the union’s contention, ruling that the grievant was entitled to the bumping rights contained in the agreement and that the bumping rights were City-wide.

He ordered that she be given the opportunity to bump the least senior grandfathered person in terms of the agreement, that she was entitled to back pay from the date of her layoff until the date she was reinstated and that back pay should include the restoration of all benefits she had lost as a result of the City’s violation of the agreement.

This was a victory for all employees covered under the Local 120 contract with the City of Tacoma.

Senior Counsel Audrey Eide represented Council 2 in the hearing.