It took four years for the out-of-title grievance filed by Local 237 members Ralph Biscotti, Mitchell Rippe and Angelo Gerbasio to work its way through the city’s grievance processing maze; but in the end, the members were vindicated.

The three maintenance workers, who are employed in the Parks Department, filed a grievance in May 2000 charging that the city violated their contract by forcing them to drive Parks Department vehicles to perform their assigned tasks in city parks. After initial hearings, the Office of Labor Relations disagreed and tossed out the grievance, arguing that driving is included in their job specifications under the clause "performs related work.”

The union then filed for arbitration in December 2001, maintaining that driving and having a driver’s license is not a requirement in the members’ job specifications, which are incorporated by reference in the members’ collective bargaining agreement.

After nine hearings on the issue from November 2002 to January 15, 2004, the arbitrator, Elmer H. Beberfall, esq., ruled in favor of the union and stated that “the city is in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Article VI (1) (c), in that the assignment of driving to maintenance workers are duties which are substantially different from those stated in the job specifications.”

In his ruling Beberfall stated:

“In Act 1, Scene II, of Julius Caesar, Cassius says to Brutus, ‘the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.’ And this is the crux of the problem. The city could have made driving a requirement for maintenance workers, as it did with 30 other trades classifications, but it did not.

“The union had the burden of proof when it asserted that driving is out of the title work for maintenance workers. I believe that the union met its burden.

“The city relied mainly on the testimony of its witnesses that ‘performs related work’ includes driving. I find such testimony not credible. The city witnesses were primarily commissioners, deputy commissioners. Borough commissioners who had little or no knowledge of what was in the job specifications for maintenance worker.

“The oldest document, the job specification for maintenance workers, is dated in 1984. There is no mention of driving in it. Thirty trades classifications require driving but not the job specification for maintenance worker. Biscotti and Gerbasio were not given driver training for their jobs as maintenance workers. CPWs were evaluated for driving, not maintenance workers.”

Although the arbitrator did not award a financial settlement, Beberfall ordered the city to “cease and desist” from assigning the maintenance workers to drive city Parks Department vehicles to their job sites.

Local 237 Grievance Coordinator Deborah Singer and Steven E. Star, an attorney with the law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, represented Local 237 in the case.