LABOR, THE LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE…
The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) recently won a hard-fought arbitration over the termination of a paraprofessional employee (also known as a “para”) in the Ashburnham-Westminster Public Schools. After five days of hearing, Arbitrator Gary Altman ruled that the School District…
In an arbitration case, the Arbitrator found that the City of Salem violated the contract and past practice when Mayor Driscoll refused to pay a Captain, retiring after 30 years of service to the City’s Police Department, for the various…
In a disappointing decision, the Supreme Judicial Court today ruled that the Quinn Bill Statute, M.G.L. c. 41, §108L, only requires a municipality that adopts it pay one half of the benefits enumerated in the statute, and that the other…
Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did NOT issue a decision in Adams v. Boston, the case considering whether municipalities may cut Quinn Bill benefits to officers. Obviously, no news is not news, but I write because I…
Once a police officer qualifies for Quinn Bill benefits, the benefits cannot be terminated if the officer is rehired or transferred after the Quinn Bill cut-off date of July 1, 2009.
Under the recent Quinn Bill amendments police officers hired…
On November 18, 2011 Governor Deval Patrick signed Chapter 176 of the Acts of 2011, “An Act Providing for Pension Reform and Benefit Modernization.” This is the third pension reform measure passed in the last three years, and significantly changes…
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”; “the Board”) dropped its retaliation lawsuit against Boeing at the urging of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (“Machinists”) after it signed a contract with Boeing on Dec. 9, 2011. The NLRB…
The Heart Law presumption, commonly called the “Heart Bill” presumes that a police officer’s heart ailment is work-related for purposes of accidental disability retirement, unless there is sufficient evidence to rebut it. In other words, if you have a heart…
