The Village of Floral Park will soon enter arbitration with its police officers over the officers’ claim that they deserve more compensation for work during and after superstorm Sandy.
The state Appellate Division court ruled Sept. 30 that the police union was entitled to arbitration, a process in which a third party helps settle labor disputes, because its collective bargaining agreement with the village provided for it and no law prohibits it.
The ruling reversed the county Supreme Court’s denial of the arbitration from October 2013, which the village requested because it said the police union did not follow its grievance process correctly.
Floral Park PBA President Robert Pedley said the appellate court “made the right decision,” but he thinks it should have been up to an arbitrator to begin with.
“The system is set up so that unions don’t clog the court system with all of our miscellaneous issues,” Pedley said.
It’s uncertain when the arbitration will start, village Administrator Gerry Bambrick said, but it will probably be within the next couple of months.
The police first asked the village for extra compensation in December 2012 for their work during and in the aftermath of Sandy between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 of that year.
The village had paid the officers $153,306 in overtime pay when the union filed the grievance, according to the county Supreme Court ruling.
But because Mayor Thomas Tweedy had declared an emergency during Sandy, the PBA argued their contract with the village entitled them to more compensation.
Bambrick said the union was asking for overtime pay at double the regular hourly rate, which the union’s contract with the village does not require.
But Pedley said the union was not asking for extra cash, but for additional time off — which he said the contract does provide.
The contract gives officers an hour of “compensation time” for each hour they work during an emergency such as Sandy, Pedley said.
The village can add that hour to their paychecks or to the amount of time they can take off work, which Pedley said is the more common route.
Ultimately, he said, the union wants the arbitration process to result in the village choosing one of those options rather than neither of them.
