No. 85-855 | Ohio | Feb 5, 1986
The issue in this case is whether the arbitrator exceeded his authority by ordering the board to grant Bagnoli’s transfer request.
Arbitration occurs when disputing parties contractually agree to resolve their conflict by submitting it to a neutral third party for resolution. It provides the parties with a relatively speedy and inexpensive method of conflict resolution and has the additional advantage of unburdening crowded court dockets. The whole purpose of arbitration would
In the case at bar, the arbitrator simply put the parties in the position they would have been in had the board not breached Sections 5.09(d) and 5.10 of the collective bargaining agreement. Thus, the award rationally flows from the terms of the agreement, and it is neither arbitrary nor capricious. To deny credence and efficacy to these sections of the agreement would be, in effect, writing them out of the collectively bargained contract of the parties. A contrary holding would mean that in almost every case, the party that was disappointed by the arbitrator’s award would be able to obtain sweeping judicial review by pointing to the familiar boilerplate language of barring the arbitrator from “adding to or subtracting from the agreement.” As this court stated in Goodyear v. Local Union No. 200, supra, at 520, “* * * [t]his would defeat the bargain made by the parties and would defeat as well the strong public policy favoring private settlement of grievance disputes arising from collective bargaining agreements.”
The board argues, and the court of appeals decided, that collective bargaining agreements are not as binding upon public employers as they are upon private employers. It is time to put an end to that notion and categorically reject the argument. Today’s decision gives notice that negotiated collective bargaining agreements are just as binding upon public employers as they are upon private employers. Warren Edn. Assn. v. Warren City Bd. of Edn. (1985), 18 Ohio St. 3d 170" court="Ohio" date_filed="1985-07-10" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/warren-education-assn-v-warren-city-board-of-education-6758911?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="6758911">18 Ohio St. 3d 170, 175. Courts should not allow public employers to disregard the terms of their collective bargaining agreements whenever they find it convenient to do so. On the contrary, the courts will require public employers to honor their contractual obligations to their employees just as the courts require employees to honor their contractual obligations to their employers.
Judgment reversed.