Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

Among the prerequisites for Singapore's industrialization identified by the 1961 United Nations survey mission was a change in labor management relations that had not been conducive to economic expansion. The government believed that industrial relations would have to be regulated more effectively and organized labor induced to comply with the nation's economic strategies. The U.N. Mission's major recommendation to accomplish tbis objective was to alter the role of tbe Industrial Arbitration Court (lAC). The Court, which had been established by a 1960 Industrial Relations Ordinance, was to be given increased authority. This advice was followed in 1964 and the lAC has continued to function in an increasingly benign industrial relations climate. Today, the Court stands at the apogee of industrial dispute settlement, but witb fewer real disputes to adjudicate.

ARBITRATION IN THE ASIAPACIFIC REGION

Arbitration as a means of dispute settlement in industrial relations has been defined by an International Labor Office (ILO) study as " . . . a procedure whereby a third party (whether an individual arbitrator, a board of arbitrators, or an arbitration court), not acting as a court of law, is empowered to make a decision which disposes of the dispute.