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Articles 1 - 30 of 32
Full-Text Articles in Labor and Employment Law
Making Employment Arbitration Fair And Accessible, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Making Employment Arbitration Fair And Accessible, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Mandatory arbitration agreements require employees, as a condition of employment, to agree to arbitrate all employment disputes instead of filing court suits. The Supreme Court has approved such agreements but many labor experts oppose them. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to prohibit pre-dispute agreements, the common form for mandatory arbitrations. This article argues that the House bill would have the practical effect of virtually eliminating employment arbitration. Instead, proposals are presented for either legislative or judicial steps to ensure that employment arbitration is fair and accessible. Requirements would include: (1) voluntary agreements on the part of …
The Best Of Times And The Worst Of Times: The Current Landscape Of Mandatory Arbitration Clause Enforcement In Domestic Arbitration, Virginia Neisler
The Best Of Times And The Worst Of Times: The Current Landscape Of Mandatory Arbitration Clause Enforcement In Domestic Arbitration, Virginia Neisler
Law Librarian Scholarship
There is nothing new about arbitration, a method of alternative dispute resolution designed to settle disputes more efficiently, cheaper, and faster than litigation. Today, mandatory arbitration clauses are ubiquitous in commercial contracts, social media terms and conditions, employment contracts, and more. These contracts, where one party in the weaker position (often a consumer or an employee) must either accept or reject the terms as written with no power to negotiate, are known as contracts of adhesion. The widespread use of arbitration clauses—specifically, predispute, forced arbitration agreements, often including classaction waiv ers found in adhesion contracts—has come under pressure.
Labor And Employment Arbitration Today: Mid-Life Crisis Or New Golden Age?, Theodore J. St. Antonie
Labor And Employment Arbitration Today: Mid-Life Crisis Or New Golden Age?, Theodore J. St. Antonie
Articles
The major developments in employer-employee arbitration currently do not involve labor arbitration, that is, arbitration between employers and unions. The focus is on employment arbitration, arbitration between employers and individual employees. Beginning around 1980, nearly all the states judicially modified the standard American doctrine of employment-at-will whereby, absent a statutory or contractual prohibition, an employer could fire an employee "for good cause, for no cause, or even for cause morally wrong." Under the new regime, grounded in expansive contract and public policy theories, wrongfully discharged employees often reaped bonanzas in court suits, with California jury awards averaging around $425,000." Many …
The Bible Of Labor Arbitration: Tribute To Professor Frank Elkouri, Theodore J. St. Antoine
The Bible Of Labor Arbitration: Tribute To Professor Frank Elkouri, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Other Publications
Each of the three traditional learned professions has had its “bible.” Divines had the progenitor, the Holy Bible itself; medical doctors had Gray’s Anatomy; and lawyers had Blackstone. What could be more fitting than that the sprightly newcomer to the ranks of the learned professions—labor arbitration—should also have its own bible: Elkouri & Elkouri, How Arbitration Works? But while Blackstone, Gray’s, and perhaps even the King James Version have largely been supplanted by sleeker, more contemporary models, nothing of the sort has happened to Elkouri. It just sails on majestically from one edition to another, now heading into its seventh.
The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine
The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Dispute resolution may be viewed from the perspective of economics or negotiation or contract law or game theory or even military strategy. In this Article, I should like to consider employment dispute resolution in particular from the perspective of morality. I do not necessarily mean "morality" in any religious sense. By "morality" here I mean a concern about the inherent dignity and worth of every human being and the way each one should be treated by society. Some persons who best exemplify that attitude would style themselves secular humanists. Nonetheless, over the centuries religions across the globe have played a …
Mandatory Employment Arbitration: Keeping It Fair, Keeping It Lawful, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Mandatory Employment Arbitration: Keeping It Fair, Keeping It Lawful, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
President Obama's election and the Democrats' takeover of Congress, including what was their theoretically filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, have encouraged organized labor and other traditional Democratic supporters to make a vigorous move for some long-desired legislation. Most attention has focused on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). As initially proposed, the EFCA would enable unions to get bargaining rights through signed authorization cards rather than a secret-ballot election, and would provide for the arbitration of first-contract terms if negotiations fail to produce an agreement after four months. The EFCA would apply to the potentially organizable private-sector working population; at …
Mandatory Arbitration: Why It's Better Than It Looks, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Mandatory Arbitration: Why It's Better Than It Looks, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
"Mandatory arbitration" as used here means that employees must agree as a condition of employment to arbitrate all legal disputes with their employer, including statutory claims, rather than take them to court. The Supreme Court has upheld the validity of such agreements on the grounds that they merely provide for a change of forum and not a loss of substantive rights. Opponents contend this wrongfully deprives employees of the right to a jury trial and other statutory procedural benefits. Various empirical studies indicate, however, that employees similarly situated do about as well in arbitration as in court actions, or even …
Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
My first visit to China, in 1994, was purely as a tourist, and came about almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October I was scheduled to begin teaching a one-term course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University in England. Despite my hazy notions of geography, I realized it made no sense to return to the United States for the intervening week. The obvious solution was to continue flying …
Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
The editors have asked us to be quite personal in our ruminations on the future of comparative labor law and policy. For me, over the past several years, the focus has been on China. My first visit to China in 1994, purely as a tourist, was almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October, I was scheduled to begin teaching a oneterm course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University …
The Changing Role Of Labor Arbitration (Symposium: New Rules For A New Game: Regulating Employment Relationships In The 21st Century), Theodore J. St. Antoine
The Changing Role Of Labor Arbitration (Symposium: New Rules For A New Game: Regulating Employment Relationships In The 21st Century), Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
A quarter century ago, in a provocative and prophetic article, David E. Feller lamented the imminent close of what he described as labor arbitration's "golden age." I have expressed reservations about that characterization, insofar as it suggested an impending shrinkage in the stature of arbitration. But Professor Feller was right on target in one important respect. Labor arbitration was going to change dramatically from the autonomous institution in the relatively self-contained world of union-management relations which it had been from the end of World War II into the 1970s. When the subject matter was largely confined to union-employer agreements, arbitration …
Gilmer In The Collective Bargaining Context, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Gilmer In The Collective Bargaining Context, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Can a privately negotiated arbitration agreement deprive employees of the statutory right to sue in court on claims of discrimination in employment because of race, sex, religion, age, disability, and similar grounds prohibited by federal law? Two leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions, decided almost two decades apart, reached substantially different answers to this questionand arguably stood logic on its head in the process. In the earlier case of Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., involving arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement, the Court held an adverse award did not preclude a subsequent federal court action by the black grievant alleging racial discrimination. …
Contract Reading' In Labor Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Contract Reading' In Labor Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
A quarter century ago, I used the phrase "contract reader" to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. This phrase has almost invariable been misunderstood to refer to reading or interpreting the contract. When I spoke of the "contract reader," it was in the context of judicial review of an award. My point was this: When a court has before it an arbitrator's award applying a collective bargaining agreement, it is as if the employer and the union had signed a stipulation stating: "What the arbitrator says this contract means is exactly what we meant …
Arbitration And Judicial Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Arbitration And Judicial Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Other Publications
A quarter century ago, in a presentation at the Academy's annual meeting, I used the phrase "contract reader" to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. That two-word phrase may be the only thing I ever said before this body that has been remembered. Unfortunately, it is almost invariably misunderstood. Time and again members have reproached me: "What's the big deal about contract reading, anyway? Isn't it just the same as contract interpretation?" Or, more substantively scathing: "Do you really think, Ted, that all you have to do to interpret a labor agreement is to …
Mandatory Arbitration Of Employee Discrimination Claims: Unmitigated Evil Or Blessing In Disguise?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Mandatory Arbitration Of Employee Discrimination Claims: Unmitigated Evil Or Blessing In Disguise?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
One of the hottest current issues in employment law is the use of mandatory arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Typically, an employer will make it a condition of employment that employees must agree to arbitrate any claims arising out of the job, including claims based on statutory rights against discrimination, instead of going to court. On the face of it, this is a brazen affront to public policy. Citizens are being deprived of the forum provided them by law. And indeed numerous scholars and public and private bodies have condemned the use of mandatory arbitration. Yet the insight of that …
Why Mandatory Arbitration May Benefit Workers, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Why Mandatory Arbitration May Benefit Workers, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Would employees-including union employees-be better off with mandatory arbitration, even of statutory employment claims? The answer to this important question should depend less on abstract notions about the importance of statutory claims and the sanctity of the right to a jury trial, and more on a pragmatic assessment of what is likely to be best for the great majority of workers. Employing this type of analysis, which would take into account an overworked, underfunded Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, backlogged court dockets and other practical problems, my view is that most employees might well be better off with mandatory arbitration, provided …
Proceedings Of The 1997 Annual Meeting Association Of American Law School Sections On Employment Discrimination Law And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine, Herbert Bernhardt, Catherine Hagen, Paul Tobias, Marion Zinman
Proceedings Of The 1997 Annual Meeting Association Of American Law School Sections On Employment Discrimination Law And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine, Herbert Bernhardt, Catherine Hagen, Paul Tobias, Marion Zinman
Other Publications
The following is an edited transcript of the proceedings of the joint meeting of the Employment Discrimination Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections at the AALS Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 7, 1997.
The Law Of Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
The Law Of Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
The law did not look kindly on arbitration in its infancy. As a process by which two or more parties could agree to have an impartial outsider resolve a dispute between them, arbitration was seen as a usurpation of the judiciary' sown functions, as an attempt to "oust the courts of jurisdiction." That was the English view, and American courts were similarly hostile. They would not order specific performance of an executory (unperformed) agreement to arbitrate, nor grant more than nominal damages for the usual breach. Only an arbitral award actually issued was enforceable at common law. All this began …
Arbitration: Back To The Future, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Arbitration: Back To The Future, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Other Publications
A strong new ideological current is sweeping through much of the Western World. At one extreme it manifests itself as a deep distrust of big government. In more modest form, it is a sense of skepticism or disillusionment about the capacity of big government to deal effectively with the problems confronting our society. In continental Europe today there is much talk of the principle of "subsidiarity," the notion that social and economic ills should be treated at the lowest level feasible, usually the level closest to the people directly affected. In the United States there is much talk of "privatization," …
Divergent Strategies: Union Organizing And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Divergent Strategies: Union Organizing And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, the so-called "Dunlop Commission," is focusing on three principal subjects: (1) union organizing, (2) worker participation in management decision making, and (3) alternative dispute resolution (ADR). I am going to concentrate on the last, but first I would like to say a few words about union organizing. After all, unionization and collective bargaining - and for that matter, worker participation as well - can fairly be viewed as special forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Model Uniform Employment Termination Act, National Conference Of Commissioners On Uniform State Laws
Model Uniform Employment Termination Act, National Conference Of Commissioners On Uniform State Laws
Other Publications
The Scope and Program Committee, at its meeting on January 11-12, 1985, recommended to the Executive Committee that it appoint a Committee to draft a Uniform Wrongful Termination Act. The recommendation was based in part on studies indicating that recent judicial modifications in the doctrine of employment at will had created great uncertainty for both employers and employees. (That uncertainty has grown. See infra.) Members of the Scope and Program Committee stressed that uniformity would be desirable because employees might be hired in one state, work in another, and be fired in a third, and that the subject gave the …
Drafting The Dispute Resolution Clause, Whitmore Gray
Drafting The Dispute Resolution Clause, Whitmore Gray
Book Chapters
Providing in a contract for ways to resolve disputes that may arise presents a substantial challenge to the lawyer. In one sense, this is what a lawyer regularly does in contract drafting-anticipating misunderstandings or problems that experience has indicated are likely to arise, and trying to provide clear solutions in advance. When it comes to drafting a specific clause for the resolution of further disputes that may arise, however, many lawyers are at a substantial disadvantage. The task comes at the end of the substantive negotiations. The client does not want to focus on, or draw the other party's attention …
Afterword To Chicago-Kent Law Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Afterword To Chicago-Kent Law Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
A unifying theme of this Symposium is as old and enduring as the common law: when and how can a well-established, successful adjudicative institution be adapted to meet the demands of new and substantially different situations? There have been splendid triumphs of transference, such as Lord Mansfield's appropriation of the law merchant in the eighteenth century as a major building block of modem commercial law. There have also been embarrassing failures, like the abortive effort to transport American labor law concepts en masse into the alien British environment of the early 1970s. The common question confronting the participants in this …
Dispute Resolution Between The General Motors Corporation And The United Automobile Workers, 1970-1982, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Dispute Resolution Between The General Motors Corporation And The United Automobile Workers, 1970-1982, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
At the end of 1982 the active membership of the United Automobile Workers stood at 1.25 million workers, belonging to about 1,600 local unions in the United States and Canada. There were 1.14 million Americans and 115,000 Canadians. Women accounted for 170,000 memberships in the two countries. A fifth or more of the total may have been retired members. The UAW ranks as the largest manufacturing union, ahead of the United Steelworkers, but behind three unions representing truckers, school teachers, and retail employees. Substantially all the blue-collar workers in the domestic auto industry have been organized, the vast majority by …
Conflict Resolution In Industrial Relations, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Conflict Resolution In Industrial Relations, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
Only about one-fifth of the American labor force is unionized. With certain important exceptions, therefore, no formal machinery exists to resolve the various disputes that arise between a majority of the country's workers and their employers. The exception, which will not be treated in detail in this study, relate to (1) the right to organize into unions, which has been protected in most of the private sector since 1935 by the National Labor Relations Act and in the public sector since the 1960s by federal law and regulation covering U.S. Government employees and by statutes in about thirty states covering …
Deferral To Arbitration And Use Of External Law In Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Deferral To Arbitration And Use Of External Law In Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
proper definition of the appropriate roles of arbitrators, administrative agencies and the courts depends in great part on the notion that, generally speaking, in labor relations, the interpretation and application of contracts is for arbitrators, and the interpretation and application of statutes is for the administrative agencies and the courts. Arbitrators deal primarily with contract rights and administrative agencies, like the NLRB and the courts, deal primarily with statutory rights. If that distinction is maintained, the problems of deferral to arbitration and the use of external law in arbitration can be more easily resolved.
Protection Against Unjust Discipline: An Idea Whose Time Has Long Since Come, Theodore St. Antoine
Protection Against Unjust Discipline: An Idea Whose Time Has Long Since Come, Theodore St. Antoine
Book Chapters
The law seems able to absorb only so many new ideas in a given area at one time. In 1967 Professor Lawrence Blades of Kansas produced a pioneering article in which he decried the iron grip of the contract doctrine of employment at will, and argued that all employees should be legally protected against abusive discharge. The next dozen years witnessed a remarkable reaction. With a unanimity rare, if not unprecedented, among the contentious tribe of labor academics and labor arbitrators, a veritable Who's Who of those professions stepped forth to embrace Blades' notion, and to refine and elaborate it …
Protection Against Unjust Discipline: An Idea Whose Time Has Long Since Come, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Protection Against Unjust Discipline: An Idea Whose Time Has Long Since Come, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
The law seems able to absorb only so many new ideas in a given area at any one time. In 1967 Professor Lawrence Blades of Kansas produced a pioneering article in which he decried the iron grip of the contract doctrine of employment at will, and argued that all employees should be legally protected against abusive discharge. The next dozen years witnessed a remarkable reaction. With a unanimity rare, if not unprecedented, among the contentious tribe of labor academics and labor arbitrators, a veritable Who's Who of those professions stepped forth to embrace Blades' notion, and to refine and elaborate …
Judicial Review Of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look At Enterprise Wheel And Its Progeny, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Judicial Review Of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look At Enterprise Wheel And Its Progeny, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
Logic, so the cliche goes, is not the life of the law. But logic is very much like the DNA of the law-the structural principle without which all is sprawl and muddle. In the last ten years a controversy has raged over the role of the labor arbitrator in issuing awards, and the role of the courts in reviewing and enforcing those awards. This controversy has largely taken the form of a continuing debate among scholars and practicing arbitrators at the annual meetings of the National Academy of Arbitrators. With due respect to the thoughtful and experienced persons who have …
Judicial Review Of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look At Enterprise Wheel And Its Progeny, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Judicial Review Of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look At Enterprise Wheel And Its Progeny, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Logic, so the cliche goes, is not the life of the law. But logic is very much like the DNA of the law-the structural principle without which all is sprawl and muddle. In the last ten years a controversy has raged over the role of the labor arbitrator in issuing awards, and the role of the courts in reviewing and enforcing those awards. This controversy has largely taken the form of a continuing debate among scholars and practicing arbitrators at the annual meetings of the National Academy of Arbitrators. With due respect to the thoughtful and experienced persons who have …
Interventionism, Laissez-Faire, And Stare Decisis: The Labor Decisions Of The Supreme Court, October Term 1969, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Interventionism, Laissez-Faire, And Stare Decisis: The Labor Decisions Of The Supreme Court, October Term 1969, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
Following is the partial text of an address delivered at the August 10, 1970, meeting of the American Bar Association's Section of Labor Relations Law by Theodore J. St. Antoine, Professor of Law, University of Michigan, and Secretary of the Section of Labor Relations Law of the American Bar Association. The portion of the address reproduced deals with the Supreme Court's Boys Markets decision relating to injunctions against strikes in violation of no-strike contracts and the Court's H. K. Porter decision involving the NLRB' s authority to order a party to agree to a substantive provision in a collective bargaining …