## Facts

- Delerick Easter worked for the Broward County School Board (the Board) as a school-bus driver.
- In 2002, Board management asked Easter to perform different functions that required transporting documents and other materials around Broward County.
- Easter’s personnel file did not reflect a change in classification, and his paystubs continued to show him as a bus driver.
- Easter performed the delivery-type work for approximately seven years.
- In 2009, Easter returned to regular school-bus-driver duties.
- After returning to bus-driving work, Easter filed a grievance claiming he had been underpaid during the prior seven years because he was working as a mail-delivery driver, which paid more than a bus driver.
- A written job description for mail-delivery drivers stated that those employees sorted mail by delivery route and did not pick up items from schools.
- Easter did not sort mail by delivery route and did pick up items from schools.
- A “truck driver” position existed that paid more than bus operators but less than mail-delivery drivers, but there was no written truck-driver job description in the summarized materials.
- A collective-bargaining agreement between the Board and the union provided that employees on temporary assignments were entitled to higher compensation.
- The union and Easter sought seven years of back pay at the mail-delivery-driver rate.
- The Board responded that there was a binding past practice of having bus drivers perform delivery services without higher pay.
- The Board also argued Easter did not perform mail-delivery-driver work as described, and that no job description matched the work he actually performed, so no additional compensation was due.
- The Board further contended Easter waived his claim by waiting about seven years to file the grievance.
- The parties did not resolve the grievance, and the union submitted the dispute to arbitration.

## Issues

1. Whether Easter’s long-term reassignment to delivery-type duties triggered the collective-bargaining agreement’s temporary-assignment provision requiring pay above the bus-driver rate.
2. If the temporary-assignment provision applied, whether Easter’s actual duties supported payment at the mail-delivery-driver rate (or another higher rate) despite differences between his tasks and the written mail-delivery-driver job description.
3. Whether an asserted past practice of assigning bus drivers to perform delivery services without upgraded pay affected the application of the temporary-assignment pay provision.
4. Whether Easter’s delay in filing (about seven years) limited or barred relief based on waiver or timeliness-related arguments.

## Decision

- The matter proceeded to labor arbitration and is reported as *Broward County School Board*, 128 Lab. Arb. Rep. 1729 (Abrams, Arb. 2011).
- Publicly available material summarizes the dispute’s background and the parties’ positions but does not provide the arbitrator’s full written award or a verifiable statement of the final result or remedy.

## Legal Principles

- Temporary-assignment provisions in collective-bargaining agreements may require upgraded pay when an employer assigns an employee to perform duties associated with a higher-paid classification, even if payroll records do not change.
- In classification and pay disputes, arbitrators commonly compare the employee’s actual duties to written job descriptions; where duties do not match the written description, entitlement to a requested rate may be disputed.
- When no written job description exists for a potentially comparable classification, fact questions about job content and how similar work is staffed and paid may become central.
- Past practice, if proven as clear, consistent, long-standing, and mutually accepted, may affect how parties and arbitrators apply or read contract language.
- Delay in filing a grievance may affect the available remedy or whether relief is allowed, depending on contractual grievance procedures and waiver-related arguments.

## Conclusion

In *Broward County School Board*, 128 Lab. Arb. Rep. 1729 (2011), a school-bus driver reassigned for about seven years to countywide delivery work claimed he was owed temporary-assignment pay and back pay at the higher mail-delivery-driver rate, while the Board relied on a claimed past practice, differences between the driver’s actual tasks and the mail-delivery-driver job description, the absence of a written description matching the work performed, and waiver arguments based on the seven-year delay in grieving; the dispute went to arbitration before Arbitrator Abrams, but the publicly available summary does not supply a verifiable statement of the award’s outcome or remedy.


Broward County School Board, 128 Lab. Arb. Rep. 1729 (2011)