Reid Coploff
Mon, 07/19/2021
On July 17, the Arlington County Board unanimously passed an ordinance authorizing collective bargaining, becoming the second municipality in the commonwealth to do so, following Alexandria in April. Attorneys from McGillivary Steele Elkin LLP assisted IAFF Local 2800 in organizing and lobbying for a comprehensive collective bargaining ordinance, meeting frequently with County representatives and officials to ensure that the final ordinance provides comprehensive, fair collective bargaining rights to the County’s employees.
MSE Partner Reid Coploff addressed the County Board at its meeting, encouraging the Board to make amendments to the ordinance that would permit labor organizations a greater opportunity to bargain over layoffs, transfers, and reassignments and permit “effects” bargaining when the County exercises the rights reserved to it under the ordinance. The Board largely adopted the amendments advocated for by Coploff, IAFF Local 2800, and the County’s other labor organizations prior to unanimously passing the ordinance.
“A fair compromise on this issue would give workers a voice on these vital issues while still allowing the County to make decisions. Compromise is at the core of collective bargaining. Denying employees any voice in this area, however, is unfair and inconsistent with true collective bargaining,” Coploff told the board.
Last year, the Virginia General Assembly passed a statute permitting municipalities to engage in collective bargaining with their employees but only if the municipality first passed an ordinance authorizing the bargaining. Under the new state law, the bargaining rights afforded to municipal employees are determined by the locality.
The Arlington ordinance provides the County’s employees with broad rights to negotiate over “wages, salaries and all forms of monetary compensation, benefits, personnel policies and practices, and working conditions.”
The County’s labor organizations, including IAFF Local 2800, were influential in getting the County Board to adopt the collective bargaining ordinance. As part of the process, the County’s fire fighters, along with other labor organizations, lobbied the County to ensure that the ordinance passed was fair and provided true collective bargaining rights to the County’s employees. The labor organizations were able to successfully broaden the scope of collective bargaining and create a fair process to resolve impasses and other disputes.
Labor organizations representing the County’s employees can now file petitions to be certified as the exclusive representative of specified bargaining units of County employees. Following an election, the labor organizations will be able to negotiate comprehensive contracts with the County covering wages, benefits, and conditions of employment.
The ordinance in an enormous victory for Arlington workers. While Virginia municipal employees have long been subject to inequitable and arbitrary treatment by employers, the employees in Arlington will now have the ability to negotiate for better, more equitable working conditions. This will lead to more effective municipal services and employees who are more likely to have both higher morale and higher retention rates. This will benefit not only the employees but also the residents of Arlington.
