(Reuters) - Public-sector employers in New York must bargain with unions over the process for terminating the employment of workers who are injured in the line of duty and are unable to return a year later, the state’s highest court held Tuesday.

While a New York statute expressly authorizes those terminations, it does not exempt termination procedures from a separate law that establishes “the ‘strong and sweeping’ public policy in favor of collective bargaining in this state,” Court of Appeals Judge Shirley Troutman wrote for the unanimous top court.

The decision reverses a 2020 ruling in favor of the City of Long Beach, which refused to bargain with the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Association over the single pre-termination hearing the city unilaterally offered firefighter Jay Gusler in 2015.

The city argued that collective bargaining was inconsistent with Civil Service Law Section 71, which has authorized such terminations since 1958. The New York legislature specifically intended Section 71 to “strike a balance” between the interests of public employers and their long-absent workers.

Latest Updates

The union, however, argued that termination procedures are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to collective bargaining under New York’s Public Employees Fair Employment Act, commonly known as the Taylor Law.

The New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) ruled for the union, and a state-court judge upheld the agency’s determination. However,...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMigwFodHRwczovL3d3dy5yZXV0ZXJzL...