VIDEO: It's a legal victory for the union that represents Watertown's city firefighters - the union can bring its dispute over staffing levels to arbitration.
Just a year ago, a state Supreme Court judge ruled the union couldn't go to arbitration. Now a state appellate court has overturned that ruling.
"The court erred in determining that the staffing provisions are not arbitrable on the ground that they are job security provisions subject to the public policy exception to arbitration," the appellate court ruled.
"This is something that didn't need to go this far. We could have been done with arbitration on the matter already if it wouldn't have been for the city's stall tactics," said Dan Daugherty, president of the firefighters union.
The city can appeal this decision, but the court of appeals, New York's highest court, does not have to take up the case.