PRINCETON: Worker files labor charge

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   A Health Department employee has made an unfair labor practice charge against the borough and borough officials claiming he was improperly demoted resulting in sizable pay cut.
   Randolph F. Carter made that and other allegations in which he claims the demotion came with “no hearing or disciplinary action,” according to a copy of the charge.
   He has taken the matter to the Public Employment Relations Commission, an independent agency that resolves disputes between employees and their public-sector employers.
   Marty Pachman, the general counsel to PERC, said Wednesday that as a nonunion employee, Mr. Carter has no standing to file the charge with PERC. He noted that demotions do not even fall under PERC’s category of unfair practices.
   ”It’s ultimately going to get dismissed,” Mr. Pachman said. “He’s in the wrong church.”
   Mr. Carter did not return a phone call seeking comment.Promoted in 2007, Mr. Carter was due this year to get the maximum salary of his pay grade this year, $83,103. The Princeton Regional Health Commission, which under state law has sole jurisdiction to fix the duties and salaries of Health Department employees, had voted to put Mr. Carter at the pay grade.
   But in December 2010, borough officials voted to drop him to a lower pay grade that had a maximum salary of $71,365, a difference of $11,738. A second health inspector suffered the same fate.
   Mr. Carter has said that he had filed grievance, but that he never was given a hearing before the mayor and the Borough Council or a written statement of the denial of his grievance by borough Administrator Robert Bruschi.
   He claims that Mr. Bruschi had met with him in June 2012 and offered to come up with a new pay grade at a salary of about $80,000, still less than the $83,103. According to Mr. Carter, Mr. Bruschi “said his legal standing is there is no money in the Health Department budget for the $3,225” that would be necessary to bring him to full salary.
   Borough Council voted in September to put Mr. Carter at his original pay grade but at a maximum salary of $79,878. To Mr. Carter, that is not good enough.
   One borough official said Mr. Carter’s actions are surprising. Councilman Roger Martindell said in an email Thursday that the council gave Mr. Carter a 26 percent raise. Mr. Martindell was the only council member to vote against it.
   He also faulted the borough’s administration and legal staff for failing to reach a settlement with Mr. Carter that lacked a waiver of future legal claims concerning this matter.
   ”Mayor and council should be embarrassed how it managed The Health Department salary increase issue for two reasons,” he wrote. “First, mayor and council voted the increases. Second, they voted the increases without having the attorneys get from the affected employees an agreement that the employees would not pursue further salary demands.”