ULP-5768                     City of East Providence & Steelworkers                            6/22/06

Filed by: Labor              Filed: 8/15/05           Complaint: 12/14/05                            Hearing: 02/09/06
Impact: Minor
Nominal Beneficiary: Labor
Actual Beneficiary: Labor

Town terminated staff at the animal shelter after keeping of Raccoons lead to rabies risk. They temporarily hired hourly workers to run the shelter while the employees grieved their termination, however after the emergency but while the grievances were ongoing, those employees began to perform animal control functions beyond care for animals already at the shelter when the rabies incident occurred. The Town misrepresented this state of affairs and was required to retroactively compensate the new employees at union rates and conditions (a rarely invoked power of the board) (and the temporary employees were required to pay union dues, but they had not contested this and were apparently friendly to the union efforts).