The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

PSOA works to get binding arbitration on November ballot

By Steve Enders

Sunnyvale's public safety officers want voters to decide this November whether they should be allowed to use binding arbitration to solve their contract disputes with the city.

The Public Safety Officers' Association (PSOA) is trying to collect at least 8,000 valid signatures on petitions by June 25, its deadline to get an initiative on the November ballot.

PSOA president Kelly Fitzgerald says the current method of arbitration isn't fair because the City Council has always had the final say in all arbitration issues.

"The city can choose to do what it wants. The arbitration is supposed to be official. Binding arbitration is just a more fair system," Fitzgerald said.

Mayor Jim Roberts says the City Council is unanimously against the idea and doesn't know why the PSOA is seeking binding arbitration.

"The initiative would take decision-making authority away from the City Council and give us no say in how much officers are paid, the benefits they receive and the hours they work," Roberts said.

The PSOA is currently in contract negotiations with the city. The group's contracts expired last June; one of the sticking points is the method of arbitration. The PSOA is still working under its existing contract with the city.

Sunnyvale's human resource specialist, Dave Neito, explains that the "evergreen clause" in the contract enables PSOA officers to continue working despite negotiations.

Mayor Roberts also called the PSOA's plan for seeking binding arbitration "irresponsible" because accountability to the public would be lost over how tax dollars are spent.

"If the City Council makes poor fiscal decisions, we can vote them out of office. If [a third-party] arbiter in Sacramento does it, we're stuck with it," he said.

"With binding arbitration, when you bring in a fair third party, conflicting interests are eliminated," Fitzgerald said.

Right now, the city handles disputes with groups such as the PSOA through a process it calls "advisory arbitration."

This process has never had to be fully implemented to settle a dispute, according to Dave Neito. It would be used, hypothetically, when the two sides come to an impasse or when they can't reach an agreement over a particular grievance.

According to Neito, both the city and the PSOA would name two electorates--regular Sunnyvale citizens who have never worked for the city in any way--to an advisory arbitration panel. The City Council would then pick one electorate from each side, by majority vote in an open City Council session.

If a dispute ever had to go to arbitration, Neito says, those two panel members would then meet and select an independent, professional arbiter from a list provided by the American Arbitrator's Association.

An arbiter would then be contacted, and the three would arrange a time to hear the said dispute.

The panel would hear the dispute and make its decision known to the City Council, which would make a final decision by voting on it.

"We've gotten to picking panel members, but we've always finished the dispute there," Neito said. The current impasse hasn't even progressed that far yet.

If binding arbitration were used, however, the arbiter would be agreed upon by the city and PSOA; the arbiter's decision would not be brought back to the City Council. There would be no panel discussion, and whatever that arbiter decided would be binding, without further discussion by the City Council.

"We've always had decent relations [with the PSOA]," Neito said. "We've had grievances go to impasse, but have never used the advisory arbitration process."

Right now, the city is at impasse with the PSOA over the binding arbitration issue and has used a mediator to help in the dispute. Despite the efforts of both sides to reach an agreement, the PSOA has decided to go ahead with its petition drive.

According to Mayor Roberts, other groups such as the Sunnyvale Employees Association, the Communication Officers Association and the city's part-time employees could follow the PSOA's lead and potentially seek binding arbitration to use to their advantage in contract disputes like the PSOA is doing now.

Neito said he doesn't know why the PSOA wants to change the process to binding arbitration, since there's never been a need to go through the whole process.

Bringing in a third-party arbiter without ties to the council could be "fiscally disastrous," Neito says.

Roberts says that Sunnyvale's public safety officers are among the highest-compensated and best-treated officers in the Bay Area. In 1997 the average total compensation, including pension and benefits, for a Sunnyvale officer was more than $103,000.

"If public safety costs go up because of the decision of an unelected arbiter," Roberts said, "we must make up the deficit by cutting other services."

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 18, 1998.
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