Sch. Supervisors & Adm'rs, Local 1 v. New York City Dep't of Educ.
| Decision Date | 15 September 2011 |
| Docket Number | 5302 112483/09 |
| Citation | 2011 NY Slip Op 06451 |
| Parties | In re Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, Local 1, etc., Petitioner-Respondent, v. New York City Department of Education, et al., Respondents-Appellants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Elizabeth S. Natrella of counsel), for appellants.
Bruce K. Bryant, Brooklyn, for respondent.
Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Joan A. Madden, J.), entered August 4, 2010, which, to the extent appealed from, granted the petition seeking to confirm an arbitration award that required the City to restore on-street parking permits to petitioner's members, and denied the City's cross petition to vacate the arbitration award and to dismiss the petition, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, the petition denied, and the cross petition granted.
Petitioner, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA), Local 1, American Federation of School Administrators, AFL-CIO, by its President Ernest Logan, is a labor organization certified pursuant to article 14 of the Civil Service Law as the bargaining representative for school principals, assistant principals, and other supervisors and administrators in the City's school system. Respondents include the City by the Mayor (City), and the New York City Department of Education (DOE), which is a municipal agency that administers the City's public education system, and is the employer of the CSA-represented employees.
In early 2008, the City enacted a city-wide plan applicable to all agencies to reduce the number of parking permits issued to municipal workers for parking on city streets, and to ensure the proper regulation of such permits by the Department of Transportation (DOT). The reason for the plan was to reduce congestion and pollution on the city streets, and to encourage the use of public transportation. Prior to that time, parking permits were distributed by each City entity based on demand rather than corresponding to parking spaces actually available.
For the 2007-2008 school year, DOE issued more than 63,000 permits for just 25,000 spaces available to DOE employees. The permits could be used in any of the 10,000 parking spaces designated by DOT for DOE use on the city streets, or in the 15,000 spaces on DOE premises. The permits made no distinction between on-street parking or parking on DOE premises. Nor were the permits site-specific. Any CSA-represented employee who requested aparking permit for use in spaces reserved for DOE employees was granted one, although having the permit did not guarantee a parking space.
Upon application of the city-wide plan, the DOE (as well as other agencies) was restricted to 10,000 permits for the corresponding number of available on-street spaces, and was no longer authorized to issue the on-street permits on demand (as distinguished from the permits it may still issue for parking spaces on DOE property). Instead, the permits issued by DOT for on-street parking are site specific, and therefore issued to personnel working at a particular site 1 . The number of DOE parking permits was thereby substantially reduced, and DOE denied permits to many CSA-represented employees who had previously held them.
In August 2008, CSA filed a grievance against the DOE, arguing that any reduction in the parking permits issued to CSA members violated a provision of the collective bargaining agreement between DOE and CSA that dealt with conditions of employment. The CSA contended that DOE could not make such a change without appropriate prior negotiation with CSA.
The grievance went to arbitration, and following a hearing, an arbitration award was entered against the DOE and the City. The arbitrator found that the permits policy change was a proper subject of bargaining as it "constituted a significant and adverse alteration of the bargaining unit members' working conditions." It directed DOE to "return[] all parking permits previously held by CSA bargaining unit members" in the 2007-2009 school year until negotiations could be conducted with CSA over the proposed reductions.
In September 2009, the CSA commenced this proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 75 to confirm the arbitration award. The City respondents cross-petitioned for an order to vacate arguing that: (1) it violated strong public policy; (2) the arbitrator vastly exceeded his authority; and (3) the arbitration award was irrational.
By order and judgment entered August 4, 2010, the court granted the petition, confirmed the award in CSA's favor, and denied the City's cross petition to vacate the award. This was error.
As a threshold matter, we reiterate well-settled law that an arbitration award will be vacated only where "it is violative of a strong public policy, or is totally irrational, or exceeds a specifically enumerated limitation on [the arbitrator's] power" (Matter of...
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