North Little Rock cannot be forced to live up to its promise to negotiate disputes over pay and working conditions with its firefighters, a city attorney said Wednesday.
The city is willing to negotiate, just not in the way city officials agreed to last year when they signed an agreement to submit to binding arbitration, Deputy City Attorney Marie-Bernarde Miller told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mary McGowan.
City officials want to reach an accord with the firefighters, but they cannot be forced to do so through arbitration, Miller said.
"The city is willing to engage in mediation to resolve this matter," she told the judge. "Mediation yes, arbitration no."
The question of how Mayor Joe Smith came to sign on to an agreement that forces the city to submit to arbitration piqued the interest of the judge.
"It was curious to me, why would they enter into it?" McGowan asked. "Why wouldn't they say mediation?"
Miller told the judge she did not know how the city got into this situation, saying the arrangement was negotiated before she joined the city attorney's office.
Miller called on the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the city's position is supported by case law dating to 1906.
McGowan said she needed some time to study those precedents before ruling.
Attorney Bob Holcomb, representing the firefighters union, said the city's repeated refusal to arbitrate violates the state's Uniform Arbitration Act of 2000.
An adverse decision by the judge won't necessarily end the litigation. Holcomb can amend the lawsuit to a contract dispute if the judge sides with the city on the arbitration matter.
The arbitration provision is the only part of the 20-page memorandum of understanding between the city and the firefighters union that the city objects to, Miller said.
"This is a void clause. The city cannot legislate away its authority ... to negotiate compensation and working conditions," she told the judge. "The city cannot be held to a contract that violates the law."
The firefighters union filed suit in November, saying that the city agreed to submit to binding arbitration if the mayor, fire chief and a union committee could not work out their differences on grievances lodged by individual firefighters.
The suit was filed 10 months after the mayor signed the contract with the International Association of Fire Fighters AFL-CIO Local 35. The agreement was reached in February 2016 to recognize the union as the collective bargaining unit for the city's firefighters.
Metro on 07/13/2017