Our union recently won an arbitration decision over the issue of multiple call-outs during a four-hour period. Lawrence E. Katz, the arbitrator, held that the State of Maine had violated the compensation article of the Administrative Services Bargaining Unit’s collective bargaining agreement when it failed to pay an employee for a second call-out within a four-hour period on October 6, 2007.

Katz wrote, “The State’s interpretation, which effectively provides no compensation for the second call-out, may be viewed as somewhat absurd or nonsensical .… This payment represents the amount of money which the parties decided was warranted whenever an employee had to suffer an interruption to his or her off-duty time.”

The language relating to the precedent set by this decision appears in all four Executive Branch contracts. Field Representative C.J. Betit represented MSEA-SEIU Local 1989 in this matter.