A judge denied the city of Dunkirk’s attempt to get out of arbitration in the case of a laid-off city worker.

State Supreme Court Judge Grace Hanlon ruled in favor of AFSCME Council Local 912 in the case of Kim Robbins. The former legal secretary, laid off Feb. 7 in the city’s cost-cutting measures, was not named in Hanlon’s seven-page ruling.

The union filed a grievance on behalf of Robbins, and arbitration of that grievance will presumably move forward after Hanlon’s ruling.

Hanlon flatly rejected the city’s argument that it complied with its union contract because it let Robbins go after the agreement expired. “Local 912 argues correctly that the Taylor Law and Triborough Amendment continues all terms and conditions of employment and provisions of an expired contract remain in effect until a new contract is approved,” she wrote.

The judge was also not impressed with Dunkirk’s argument that a no-layoff clause in the contract was unenforceable. She noted that contract addendums laying out exceptions to the clause never discussed financial hardship by the city.

The city also tried to argue that the four-year length of the contract was unreasonable. Hanlon called that argument “illogical.”

In addition, she goes on to cut up Dunkirk’s contention the parties were of unequal bargaining power due to the city’s multimillion-dollar deficit. “While the current mayor and attorney were not in their current positions with the city in 2021 when the audits were not performed, the city of Dunkirk should not be permitted use (of) this now as a sword, when it was their failure to order the audits in the first place, that left the city…without this knowledge at the time the CBA was negotiated and agreed upon by the parties,” Hanlon wrote.

Local 912 also argued that the reinstatement of Robbins would not dramatically impact the city’s debt. Hanlon agreed.

“The court further pontificates that if the city… were able to terminate this one employee, based upon the logic that they have set forth in their petition, they would be permitted to terminate additional employees, despite valid CBAs being in effect,” the judge wrote. “This is a slippery slope that this court is not willing to navigate.”