July 31, 2007 — While the government may be honor bound to try to pay, it doesn’t legally owe hundreds of millions of dollars in retroactive pay claimed by teacher and other government employees, a Collective Bargaining official told senators Tuesday during budget hearings in Frederiksted.
The testimony came from Jessica Gallivan, chief negotiator for the Office of Collective Bargaining. The revelation came during an exchange prompted when Sen. Liston Davis asked Gallivan how much retroactive pay is owed specifically to education professionals.
The amount is approximately $142 million, Gallivan said. Davis asked if that included interest, and Gallivan responded that one contract calls for interest but V.I. code says the government does not have a legally binding debt until or unless the Legislature passes a bill accepting the debt.
“Are you saying the retroactive pay is not binding?” Davis asked.
“Not until the Legislature takes a position,” Gallivan said. “Although not legally binding and enforceable debt, if we negotiated in good faith, to the extent that resources permit we should honor that with legislative action.”
Several senators were wary of any suggestion the government did not owe the retroactive pay.
“I want to say we owe the money,” said Sen. Terrence “Positive” Nelson.
“That’s an interesting interpretation,” said Sen. Juan Figueroa-Serville. “Even if case law says the government is not legally bound … I feel the government has, if not a legal, (then) an ethical and moral obligation.”
Sen. Ronald Russell took a different tack.
“We all believe in labor and giving our people money,” Russell said. “But if a contract negotiated in ’74 expired in ’77, it is expired. … That is a protective measure drafted into the law so the Legislature and the executive could not oversubscribe this government. … Perhaps it is time to negotiate a new contract, though it is hard to swallow.”
Later in the hearing, sparks flew between Gallivan and Russell over the propriety of Russell submitting legislation to appropriate money for a pending lawsuit he himself originally brought. The suit and appropriation are for payments to a group of government retirees.
“I think it is wrong to use the legislative process to address issues that you worked on in your private-sector employment as a lawyer,” Gallivan told Russell. “I think no legislator should ever be seeking legislation to fund a lawsuit that has not been settled.”
“I stand to gain nothing,” Russell said. “I turned the case over to another attorney. Those retirees were left out of the bargaining unit. … I thing the government has done a great disservice to those retirees.”
Russell referred to a law Gallivan cited earlier, which says the Legislature must appropriate money for the debt incurred by the executive branch to be valid. He suggested the appropriation had to be made in advance of the legal settlement to make it binding.
Gallivan was not persuaded.
“In the six years I spent as assistant attorney general, I never agreed to pay any attorney in the private sector,” she said. “I am aware of the very small amount of time spent on it, and $180,000 in legal fees to me borders on the criminal.”
The heated exchange continued in this vein for some time, forcing Nelson, who chairs the committee, to repeatedly remind both Russell and Gallivan of the Senate rules for speaking.
The Office of Collective Bargaining negotiates labor contracts on behalf of the government. Currently 13 of those contracts are expired. Chronic backlogs in contract negotiations have been a primary complaint about the office for a number of years. Gallivan has scheduled 11 contract negotiations for the upcoming 12 months. This is roughly double the number of contracts negotiated in each of the last several years. Gallivan would not guarantee any particular number, evading the question several times. She did say her schedule was ambitious and that she planned to stick to her schedule.
Gallivan’s budget request for the Office of Collective Bargaining was for $738,000; one of the smallest government-agency budgets. That is 14 percent more than last year’s budget. Her office also controls $10 million in funds earmarked for funding new contracts. Those funds are for union workers’ pay and benefits and are not part of the office budget, however.
Tuesday’s hearing was informational. The Senate will revisit the budget request and vote on it in upcoming hearings.
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