The Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division sided with the Hoboken Municipal Employees Association over a 2020 pay dispute over demotions when the city had financial woes and laid off workers during he early part of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“First, we conclude, as did the judge, that the record was devoid of facts to support of a past practice of unilaterally setting wages that could be extended to demoted employees. As the judge observed, new hires and promoted employees do not have the same expectation of a certain salary within the range,” Appellate Judges Stephanie Anne Mitterhoff and Carmen Alvarez ruled on Friday.
“New hires can either accept or reject the job based on the salary offer. Promoted employees presumably receive either a more prestigious title, a pay raise, or both. Demoted employees, in contrast, are required to accept a lesser title and salary than that which they previously bargained for. The judge was correct that the absence of a factual basis for extending the City’s past practice to demoted employees is obvious and not subject to debate.”
The dispute came in part due to an anticipated $7,420,795 budget shortfall in 2020 that was initially projected to cause up to 80 layoffs.
After hearing from angry employees and crunching some numbers, the city indicated they’d be laying off 26 municipal workers in April 2020.
By the following month, layoffs rights notices were given to the affected employees, with those with seniority offered “lateral” or “demotional” bumping rights.
“When exercising lateral bumping rights, grievants bumped employees who were in a different position but who held the same title. When exercising demotional bumping rights, grievants bumped employees who were in a different title with a lower pay range,” Friday’s ruling explains.
“The City unilaterally set salaries for all employees who exercised their bumping rights at $35,000 per year, and they were provided an additional $1,000 for every year of service since 2012, even if they were hired long before that time.”
The court also noted that many of these employees remained in the same titles or positions and still took a pay cut, with these salaries set without any negotiations with the HMEA.
For these reasons, the HMEA filed a grievance against the city and sent a request to the New Jersey Employment Relations Commission (PERC) for a panel of arbitrators.
At the arbitration hearing, the HMEA contended that the city violated their collective bargaining agreement by not engaging in a proper negotiation process before slashing salaries.
On January 15th, 2021, the arbitrator ruled that the city violated the CBA with respect to workers’ lateral bumping rights, though said their was no issue with the demotional bumping.
However, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Anthony D’Elia reversed the decision on May 26th, 2021.
” … I think it’s unreasonable based on this record to conclude that the union would have shut its mouth in the past if they reduce people’s salaries, and … unilaterally pick the salaries that they would get when … they had a bump and go to a lower title. There’s been no … factual basis to support that conclusion at all,” D’Elia ruled at the time.
While the city challenged that decision, the appellate court upheld D’Elia’s ruling.
“As noted by Judge D’Elia, the City agrees there was no emergency regulation enacted to permit the City to disregard the CBA and set salaries as a matter of managerial prerogative,” they ruling says.
“Thus, the arbitrator erred as a matter of law to the extent he relied on the fiscal crisis alone as the reason why the wages of the demoted workers were non-negotiable.”
So what does it all mean? They City owes the 26 people they laid off back pay?
The court doesn’t make that distinction here:
https://www.njcourts.gov/attorneys/assets/opinions/appellate/unpublished/a0143-21.pdf?c=2SL
The City of Hoboken payroll has long been a political patronage mill.
Another LOSS for Ravi!
Don’t think of it so much as a loss for Ravi, but monies found and recovered that he used to give his personal political staff, big, FAT raises.
They got ridiculous raises and others were canned who do the real work for Hoboken & Hoboken people.
Most of the residents of Hoboken live and work in the real world where downsizing staff is a given when needed.
This is the result of inexperienced administrators and directors at City Hall. They not only forced early retirements in May 2020 by placing long-time employees who had enough years of service to retire in the layoff plan, but the City threw other longtime employees who didn’t have enough years to retire into the streets to fend for themselves.
Now we find out that the City hurt other employees via “demotions” by reducing their salaries using a formula that came from thin air. Each had their salary reduced and was forced to accept that or leave the City. Many were transferred, creating openings for new hires.
In the meantime, the City budget grew from 2020 to 2022 by $15 million, everyone else got raises – especially directors and new employees that were hired right after the layoffs.
The sneaky and deliberate way that the layoff plan was conceived and followed through upon should result in an Investigation. The City Council was either complicit or ignorant in the way that all of the above unfolded. This all occurred when most employees were working from home during COVID-19. Despicable actions by the so-called City leaders.
The shameless acts committed against City employees should not go without the full blame being accepted by those who perpetrated and carried out this layoff plan. Resignations are in order.
Employees affected should be compensated for their losses on an individual basis by the City immediately, including those forced to retire, those laid off and those demoted with huge pay cuts. This was “City Employee Cleansing” at its worst!
Take a look at the numbers and the large raises since employees were shown the door so inhumanly. Look at the hires since May 2020 and see the large salaries and raises since. See what raises the inexperienced people running our City gave themselves, taking from those just trying to get by with rising costs.
The Council should investigate all of the above and more, since they were made a part of all of the actions that affected so many City employees. They even got raises, that makes them look complicit in hurting long-time City employees.
Let’s get to the bottom of this premeditated and hurtful action that the City took and set things right for each of the employees demoted with pay cuts, those forced to retire early and those kicked to the curb with no thanks.
The City Council should thoroughly investigate the actions taken by the administration, on a case by case basis, and set things right ASAP.