By Ed Friedrich
Friday, October 2, 2009
Washington State Ferries must pay its engine room workers about $2 million for two years of watch turnovers.
A watch turnover is when a departing crew discusses engine room issues with an incoming crew. It takes only a few minutes, but the collective bargaining agreement stipulates that overtime of less than 15 minutes must be paid as 15 minutes of double time. The crews had never been paid for turnovers before.
The Marine Employees’ Commission (MEC), which resolves disputes between ferry workers and management, ruled on July 24 that the ferry system must compensate engine room employees for unpaid watch turnovers dating back to April 9, 2007. The sides have 90 days from July 24 to calculate the amount owed each employee and resolve the issue. If they can’t, WSF must pay $1.9 million plus interest to the union for the period of April 9, 2007 to March 31, 2009, for any watch turnovers since then, and attorneys’ fees.
“It’s a pretty complicated thing to calculate because we didn’t keep records exactly of the watch turnover time because we weren’t paying it,” said Jean Baker, WSF’s deputy chief of finance and administration. “ This is not compensable anywhere else in the marine industry, so we’re trying to set the standard here on how to do this.”
About 400 employees will receive back pay, she said.
Ben Davis, staff chief engineer on the MV Tacoma, and several other Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association members initially filed a class-action lawsuit in Pierce County Superior Court in August 2004. They prevailed, and WSF was ordered to pay wages for watch turnovers plus interest, attorneys’ fees and double damages.
The state appealed, arguing that the grievance should have been handled by the MEC. The state Court of Appeals agreed and threw out the case. In doing so, however, it ruled that “watch changes are a regular, essential and required work activity for which the state must compensate under the CBA. And whether watch changes are work or whether watch changes must be compensated is not an issue for future grievance or arbitration.”
The grievance moved to the MEC, which had little choice but to go along with the appeals court. The commissioners weren’t happy about being put in that position, although they might have arrived at the same conclusion. They wrote that the appeals court “overstepped its bounds and directed us, in advance of arbitration, as to what our findings should be. We strongly believe it was inappropriate of the court to have given advance instructions to the Commission on the interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement.”
When contacted, Linda Hoverter, MEC special assistant, avoided the appeals court issue except to say, “It is unusual, but they do that sometimes.”
Karol Kingery, MEBA branch agent, said the union followed the appeals court’s direction and found the result “reasonable.”
“We took their edict that it had to be bargained and did exactly what we were supposed to do,” he said. Washington State Ferries argued that watch turnovers are part of routine duties for which engine room employees are paid well. The top 10 staff chief engineers earned from $141,000 to $169,000, including mileage, last year. Davis, who filed the lawsuit, pulled down $108,000. At the other end, the 10 lowest-paid oilers made $56,000 to $59,000.
Labor costs make up the majority of the ferry system’s operating budget. Over the next two years, it will spend $264 million, or 67 percent of the budget, on personnel, according to WSF spokeswoman Joy Goldenberg.
Ferries director David Moseley said he knows of no other operation that pays extra for watch turnovers.
“Past practice, not just within Washington State Ferries but within the maritime industry, has been that engine room crews do a quick watch turnover for a few minutes at the end of each watch and the beginning of each watch,” he said. “That’s what the standard has been in the maritime industry for a very long time.”
BC Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said WSF’s neighbor to the north pays one officer-in-charge 10 minutes of regular pay for what it calls “handovers.”
Turnovers at Woods Hole Steamship Authority, which runs ferry service in Massachusetts, are completed during the regular shifts, said General Manager Wayne Lamson.
Officials at the Staten Island Ferry in New York City didn’t respond about how it handles changeovers.
The union was awarded attorneys’ fees for the MEC process but not for the lawsuit. Its request for double damages also was denied.
The MEC arrived at the $1.9 million figure from calculations made by the union based on 15 minutes of overtime per shift per employee. The union submitted figures for three time periods — $1.9 million to April 9, 2007, 60 days before the grievance was filed; $4.2 million back to Aug. 11, 2004, when the lawsuit was filed; and $6.7 million, going back three years before the lawsuit. WSF didn’t offer any alternatives.
“We did not put a proposal on the table on what the back pay would be because our position was the back pay was not warranted,” Moseley said. “The MEC found differently than that.”
Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/oct/02/ferries-system-owes-millions-in-back-pay-to-room/#ixzz0T5No5aTZ
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