Back in July -- I know, this is dangerously close to 'old news' but it's still an interesting tidbit -- Judge Beatrice Brickhouse of the Second Judicial District concluded that a local AFSCME chapter could not force the City of Albuquerque to arbitrate under a compact signed in the latter days of the outgoing Chavez administration.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, the court noted that the case centered on an "open-ended," "union-friendly" and "unusual agreement" purportedly signed between the outgoing Mayor and AFSCME, and later approved by the City
Labor Management Relations Board (LMRB). Id., Dan McKay, July 10, 2012. The agreement established an arbitration process for resolving disputes of a "non-economic" nature. McKay correctly reported that the City's grandfathered labor ordinance conspicuously does not require arbitration, but rather permits the City to impose a resolution in the event bargaining fails.
Union leaders have argued that binding arbitration would enhance the stability in labor-management relations and "fix" a "broken system in which negotiations are ending in impasse. For its part, the City described the agreement as an attempted "end run around an ordinance." The New Mexico Court of Appeals has rejected the argument that
binding arbitration is a requirement for effective collective
bargaining. See City of Deming v. Deming Firefighters Local 4251, 2007-NMCA-069.
Besides noting the generally unusual circumstances of the eleventh-hour agreement, the Court concluded "the agreement was questionable" because it was not clear that then-Mayor Chavez had authorized the agreement. The Union introduced an affidavit purported to be from the ex-Mayor and to support the agreement's validity, but there were multiple and conflicting signatures and notarization on that affidavit.
If you have any labor
or employment matters
that you would like to resolve privately through a knowledgeable and
experienced arbitrator or mediator, please feel free to contact Pilar Vaile,
P.C. at (505) 247-0802, or info@pilarvailepc.com.
