By David Worley
An arbitrator in City of Canton, ruled that Canton Police Sergeants are entitled to have the Patrol Officer’s signing bonus included in the equation when calculating the Sergeant’s contractually, guaranteed rank differential agreement
The Canton Sergeants and Patrol Officers are in different bargaining units and represented by different unions. The Sergeants had negotiated a 17% “differential” over the patrol officers as part of their most recent agreement, which also involved other concessions such as a reduction in force. Thereafter, the Officers bargaining unit negotiated a $500 signing bonus. But the City then refused to include the signing bonus in the calculation of the differential. A grievance followed.
The Sergeants’ union argued that its agreement explicitly assured maintenance of the differential inclusive of base wage rates, “and any other bonuses.” The arbitrator found the “any other bonus” language to be clear and unambiguous, rejecting the City’s claim that past practice and side discussion evidence required a different result.
In rejecting consideration of the City’s other evidence, the Arbitrator explained:
There is no necessity of considering extraneous evidence without an ambiguity, one where the language is reasonably susceptible to more than one meaning.A second reading of the same language by another party does not constitute an ambiguity. The ambiguity must arise from the language not the parties’ contentions.
The arbitrator also explained that the employer’s arguments were simply that the language was not clear, as it could potentially lead to an absurd interpretation. However, he noted that relying on the plain meaning of the words, and not stretching their meaning to find some absurd interpretation, resulted in a reasonable meaning and a proper result.
