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Labor Arbitration: What You Need to Know 5th Edition - Hardcover
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CHAPTER ONE - Preview Page

SO YOU HAVE A LABOR GRIEVANCE

In labor relations, grievance arbitration has become an integral part
of the labor contract. It was relatively easy to persuade private
employers that binding arbitration was a better way to settle grievances
than through strikes. That was good management.

The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and favorable court decisions helped
to establish arbitration as the primary American grievance system.
Grievance arbitration is recognized as an important American
innovation, eliminating strikes and providing a mechanism through
which unions can obtain realistic results. It has accomplished this
without burdening the courts or regulatory agencies. Grievance
arbitration is also used in the public sector to resolve the problems of
teachers, police officers, municipal clerks, and firefighters.

Millions of Americans participate in these procedures as grievants,
witnesses, advocates, arbitrators, or persons affected by the decisions.
Whether they are on the side of labor or management or serve as
impartials, they need to understand the process. Some advocates and
arbitrators specialize in labor arbitration, but most participate
infrequently. When they do, they need to refresh their knowledge of
the fundamentals. This book seeks to help those people by bringing
them up to date.

Each grievance is unique. Depending upon the language of the
particular collective bargaining contract, past practices between the
parties, and their present relationship, the facts of each case will be
different. Some situations may be relatively unimportant to the union
or to the employer. Other grievances may probe vital interests of the
parties, threatening important rights of individual employees, the
profitability or even the existence of a company, or a union’s power to
represent its workers. Being a system created by people, the grievance
and arbitration process displays all of the foibles of the individuals
involved. The variety of potential human conflict lends drama to the
practice and handling of these hundreds of thousands of industrial
grievances.