Private Labor Arbitration Award, July 2011

On July 22, 2011, Partner Matt Wakefield received a favorable arbitration award on behalf of a luxury hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. The union grieved the number of chefs in the hotel’s restaurant and banquet kitchens, arguing that the hotel exceeded the collectively bargained limitation of three non-union working chefs or supervisors. While the hotel has an executive chef, an executive sous chef, a banquet sous chef, a restaurant chef, and two restaurant sous chefs, only three of the chefs regularly performed bargaining unit work. The arbitrator agreed that the hotel did not exceed the limitation on working chefs or supervisors and denied the grievance. He found that it was not a violation of the collective bargaining agreement for two of the non-working chefs to assist bargaining unit cooks “for brief periods of time to satisfy guests’ needs.”