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56 FLRA No. 188
American Federation of Government EmployeesLocal 3134 and United States Small Business Administration Region 2 (Ilivicky, Arbitrator), 0-AR-3353 (Decided January 26, 2001)
The Arbitrator sustained a grievance alleging that the Agency failed to promote the grievant in a timely fashion to the GS-9 level in violation of the parties' collective bargaining agreement. The Arbitrator found that the grievant's promotion to a GS-9 should have been effectuated approximately four months earlier and ordered that the grievant be made whole for the difference in salary and benefits between the GS-7 and GS-9 levels for those four months, with interest.
The Authority construed the Union's exceptions that the award was contrary to law and incomplete as a contention that the Arbitrator exceeded her authority since all of the Union's arguments and cited case law involved exceeded authority claims. In this regard, the Authority noted that arbitrators exceed their authority when they fail to resolve an issue submitted to arbitration, resolve an issue not submitted to arbitration, disregard specific limitations on their authority, or award relief to those not encompassed within the grievance. In the absence of a stipulated issue, the arbitrator's formulation of the issue is accorded substantial deference.
In this case, it was apparent that the issues, as framed, did not specifically concern whether the grievant should be granted relief for delays that allegedly occurred in subsequent promotions to Grade 11 and Grade 12. Thus, the Arbitrator's interpretation of the issues before her -- focusing on the Agency's actions regarding the delay in grievant's promotion solely to the GS-9 level -- was entirely reasonable. The Authority found that the award was directly responsive to the issues as framed. Therefore, there was no basis on which to conclude that the Arbitrator exceeded her authority.