Valley Independent Sentinel

UPDATE: Derby Must Pay Luneau

by Eugene Driscoll | Feb 9, 2010 6:22 pm

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Posted to: Derby

Ron Luneau, Sr. was scheduled to report to work at 3 a.m. Wednesday — 14 months after being fired from his job at the Department of Public Works.

A state labor arbitration board Monday ordered the city to compensate Luneau for lost wages and health benefits.

How much the city will pay Luneau was not immediately known Tuesday.

James Castelot, a Council 4 ASCME representative who spoke on Luneau’s behalf, estimated Luneau could be paid as much as $90,000.

City officials aren’t so sure — and questioned whether unemployment claims would lower the final amount due.

Background

Luneau was fired by Derby Department of Public Works Director Ron Culmo in December 2008, after a Board of Aldermen subcommittee investigation revealed the city’s transfer station was plagued with problems.

A transfer station is a place where garbage is dumped, separated and trucked off for permanent disposal.

The problems at the transfer station were numerous, ranging from laughably bad records to general uncleanliness.

Who was to blame for the transfer station’s problems?

The workers certified by the Department of Environmental Protection who ran the place, according to city officials.

Click here to read the report from the Aldermen’s subcommittee.

That position eventually helped Luneau and fellow transfer station employee Al Jeanetti lose their jobs.

The city, in a move they said was cost effective, brought in Annex Associates, a private company, to take over the transfer station.

However, on Dec. 1, a state labor panel ordered Annex out, saying Derby violated a contract with its DPW union by having the union approve an extension of the city’s contract with Annex.

The city later closed the transfer station, which, it turned out, they never had a state permit to operate.

On Jan. 21, a state labor panel said Derby’s firing of Al Jeanetti went too far. Jeanetti may not have been doing a great job at the transfer station, but the city should have taken other disciplinary actions. Jeanetti was reinstated and was to be paid $5,000 by the city.

The Luneau Decision

In a decision posted below, a state mediation and arbitration panel ruled that Luneau was fired without just cause.

“Management did not follow the requisite steps in establishing just cause in removing the grievant, therefore the termination is invalid,” the decision reads.

The decision also questions the manner in which Derby officials brought in Annex Associates to run the transfer station.

The city was within its right to bring in a subcontractor, but the manner is which Annex was brought in didn’t jive with the agreement between the city and the union.

“Rather than following procedures . . . . it appeared to the panel that the city chose to terminate the grievant and other transfer station employees for disciplinary reasons.”

City Reaction

City officials pointed out that Luneau knew he wasn’t filling out paperwork the way he was supposed to.

“In fact, he made a conscious decision to disregard his job responsibilities,” Derby argued to the state panel.

Mayor Anthony Staffieri said the city did the right thing by getting involved in the mess at the transfer station. The Aldermen subcommittee determined Luneau and Jeanetti were the source of the problems. Luneau and Jeanetti should have been fired, Staffieri said.

“Here is an employee who admitted he was doing wrong and the labor department still sides with him because of a technicality, because we didn’t give him a verbal warning, a written warning,” the mayor said, referring to Luneau. “It just OKs doing wrong.”

Ken Hughes, president of the Board of Aldermen, also said the city has no regrets.

He pointed out that two labor boards, looking at the same basic case, came up with different results in terms of monetary compensation.

Hughes questioned why the city was ordered to pay Jeanetti just $5,000 — but Luneau, a union president, will receive full back pay.

“If I was a union guy, I’d be angry,” Hughes said.

Union Reaction

James Castelot, who spoke on Luneau’s behalf, said Luneau and Jeanetti were fall guys for the problems at the transfer station.

The city wanted to bring in a private company and needed a reason to do so, Castelot said.

“They were trying to take of those people (Annex) instead of their people in house. Somebody had to get blamed and my blue collar union guys were the guys they went after,” he said.

Regarding the city’s assertion that Luneau knew he wasn’t following the rules at the transfer station, Castelot said:

“The paperwork was filled out wrong by anyone who ever worked there. No one ever said anything or did anything. No one was ever disciplined. This all starts with management. Instead of management taking blame, they went after the blue collar guys to cover it all up.”

For a full accounting of the positions of the city and the union, read the following document:

LUNEAUdecision

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