Long Island employment lawyer Peter Famighetti has won a ruling on a threshold issue concerning an arbitration for a faculty member of Nassau Community College. Famighetti represents a college professor in a dispute related to the professor’s bid to become chairperson of his department. The professor alleged the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement was violated during the election process and ultimately filed a grievance to challenge the election process. Today’s Long Island employment law blog discuss what happened next in the grievance process.
After the professor started the grievance process via his union, the college challenged whether the professor’s issue could be heard in an arbitration. The college asserted two primary arguments. First, the college lodged a procedural arbitrability argument. This means that the college argued that the professor’s issues could not be arbitrated because, procedurally, he waited too long to file an initial grievance. In other words, the college alleged that the union contract’s deadlines for filing a grievance were not met by the professor.
Second, the college made a substantive arbitrability argument. This means the college argued that the professor’s issue could not be arbitrated because a determination had already been made in another professor’s grievance proceeding which addressed the same issues presented in this professor’s grievance. Because of that determination, the professor could not arbitrate his claims.