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Dispute Resolution and Arbitration

Selected Works

2012

Dispute resolution

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Law

Adoption And Use Of Dispute Resolution Procedures In The Nonunion Workplace, Alexander Colvin Jun 2012

Adoption And Use Of Dispute Resolution Procedures In The Nonunion Workplace, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] This paper investigates the adoption, structure, and function of dispute resolution procedures in the nonunion workplace. Whereas grievance procedures in unionized workplaces have been an important area of study in the field of industrial relations, research on dispute resolution procedures in nonunion workplaces has lagged behind. As a result, our knowledge of the development of nonunion procedures remains relatively limited. Similarly, with a few noteworthy exceptions (e.g. Lewin, 1987, 1990), our knowledge of workplace grievance activity is almost entirely based on research conducted in unionized settings. Given the major differences in the institutional contexts of union and nonunion workplaces …


An Empirical Study Of Employment Arbitration: Case Outcomes And Processes, Alexander Colvin Jun 2012

An Empirical Study Of Employment Arbitration: Case Outcomes And Processes, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

Using data from reports filed by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) pursuant to California Code requirements, this article examines outcomes of employment arbitration. The study analyzes 3,945 arbitration cases, of which 1,213 were decided by an award after a hearing, filed and reaching disposition between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2007. This includes all the employment arbitration cases administered nationally by the AAA during this time period that derived from employer-promulgated arbitration procedures. Key findings include: (1) the employee win rate amongst the cases was 21.4%, which is lower than employee win rates reported in employment litigation trials; (2) …


Improved Metrics For Workplace Dispute Resolution Procedures: Efficiency, Equity, And Voice, John W. Budd, Alexander Colvin Jun 2012

Improved Metrics For Workplace Dispute Resolution Procedures: Efficiency, Equity, And Voice, John W. Budd, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

Many debates surround systems for resolving workplace disputes. In the United States, traditional unionized grievance procedures, emerging nonunion dispute resolution systems, and the court-based system for resolving employment law disputes have all been criticized. What is missing from these debates are rich metrics beyond speed and satisfaction for comparing and evaluating dispute resolutions systems. In this paper, we develop efficiency, equity, and voice as these standards. Unionized, nonunion, and employment law procedures are then qualitatively evaluated against these three metrics.


Doping Control, Mandatory Arbitration, And Process Dangers For Accused Athletes In International Sports , Maureen A. Weston Jun 2012

Doping Control, Mandatory Arbitration, And Process Dangers For Accused Athletes In International Sports , Maureen A. Weston

Maureen A Weston

Athletes in a professional sports league in the United States are members of players unions, which assist their athletes in obtaining representation when they are involved in dispute resolution proceedings associated with disciplinary actions. However, individual athletes who participate in international competitions do not enjoy the same benefits. When these athletes are required to submit to mandatory drug testing, with attendant potential criminal liability, and to mandatory arbitration, they should be provided meaningful access to competent legal representation when their athletic careers are in jeopardy. This article considers the legal framework, process, and recourse for athletes in international competition to …


Institutional Pressures, Human Resource Strategies, And The Rise Of Nonunion Dispute Resolution Procedures, Alexander Colvin May 2012

Institutional Pressures, Human Resource Strategies, And The Rise Of Nonunion Dispute Resolution Procedures, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

The author investigates factors influencing the adoption of dispute resolution procedures in the nonunion workplace. Various explanations are tested using data from a 1998 survey of dispute resolution procedures in the telecommunications industry. The results suggest that both institutional pressures and human resource strategies are factors driving the adoption of nonunion procedures. Among institutional factors, rising individual employment rights litigation and expanded court deferral to nonunion arbitration have led to increased adoption of mandatory arbitration procedures in the nonunion workplace. At the same time, an older institutional factor—union substitution by nonunion employers aimed at avoiding union organizing—continues to inspire the …


Employee Voice, Human Resource Practices, And Quit Rates: Evidence From The Telecommunications Industry, Rosemary Batt, Alexander J.S. Colvin, Jeffrey Keefe May 2012

Employee Voice, Human Resource Practices, And Quit Rates: Evidence From The Telecommunications Industry, Rosemary Batt, Alexander J.S. Colvin, Jeffrey Keefe

Alexander Colvin

The authors draw on strategic human resource and industrial relations theories to identify the sets of employee voice mechanisms and human resource practices that are likely to predict firm-level quit rates, then empirically evaluate the predictive power of these variables using data from a 1998 establishment level survey in the telecommunications industry. With respect to alternative voice mechanisms, they find that union representation predicts lower quit rates, even after they control for compensation and a wide range of other human resource practices that may be affected by collective bargaining. Also predicting lower quit rates is employee participation in offline problem-solving …


Telecommunications 2004: Business Strategy, Hr Practices, And Performance, Rosemary Batt, Alexander J.S. Colvin, Harry C. Katz, Jeffrey Keefe May 2012

Telecommunications 2004: Business Strategy, Hr Practices, And Performance, Rosemary Batt, Alexander J.S. Colvin, Harry C. Katz, Jeffrey Keefe

Alexander Colvin

This national benchmarking report of the U.S. telecommunications services industry traces the tumultuous changes in management and workforce practices and performance in the sector over the last 5 years. This is a follow-up report to our 1998 study. At that time, when the industry was booming, we conducted a national survey of establishments in the industry. In 2003, we returned to do a second national survey of the industry, this time in a sector that was recovering from one of the worst recessions in its history.


Rethinking Bargaining Unit Determination: Labor Law And The Structure Of Collective Representation In A Changing Workplace, Alexander Colvin May 2012

Rethinking Bargaining Unit Determination: Labor Law And The Structure Of Collective Representation In A Changing Workplace, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] Arguably the leading issue for current labor law research is whether the existing system of law based on the Wagner Act model can continue to be relevant and appropriate for the contemporary workplace. Changes in the environment of work during the over half-century since this model was developed have brought pressures for re-evaluation and adaptation of key elements of its structure. Criticism of this system has focused on a number of areas, including: the reliance on the formal grievance procedure and arbitration; the separation of the realms of collective bargaining and business decision making; the limitations on employee participation …


From Supreme Court To Shopfloor: Mandatory Arbitration And The Reconfiguration Of Workplace Dispute Resolution, Alexander Colvin May 2012

From Supreme Court To Shopfloor: Mandatory Arbitration And The Reconfiguration Of Workplace Dispute Resolution, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] In a series of court battles during the 1990s, employers successfully defended the use of mandatory employment arbitration against challenges that the procedures inherently undermined the statutory rights of employees. Efforts to introduce legislation in Congress aimed at reversing the Gilmer decision were unsuccessful. In 2001, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its acceptance of mandatory arbitration to resolve employment disputes in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams. However, some courts have been willing to strike down arbitration procedures that contain particularly egregious violations of due process. For example, courts have refused to enforce arbitration agreements that restrict employee damage awards, …


Organizational Primacy After The Demise Of The Organizational Career: Employment Conflict In A Post-Standard Contract World, Alexander Colvin May 2012

Organizational Primacy After The Demise Of The Organizational Career: Employment Conflict In A Post-Standard Contract World, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] There is a contradiction at the heart of dispute resolution in the contemporary workplace. The locus of determination of the terms and conditions of employment, including processes for the resolution of disputes concerning these terms and conditions, has become increasingly decentralized to the organizational level, at the same time that long term attachment of employee careers to these same organizations has been diminishing. The result is a disconnect between the nature of current employment disputes, which increasingly involve issues relating to entry to and exit from relationships with organizations, including questions of the formation and content of employment contracts, …


Let's Put Ourselves Out Of Business: On Respect, Responsibility, And Dialogue In Dispute Resolution, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

Let's Put Ourselves Out Of Business: On Respect, Responsibility, And Dialogue In Dispute Resolution, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

This Essay works in two steps. I want to daydream with you about the future, or what I hope will someday be the future, of our dispute resolution movement. I want to then use these imaginings to reflect upon where we are today. I want to suggest something that may at first seem odd: Our ultimate goal should be to put ourselves, or virtually put ourselves, out of business. Eventually, I hope the time will come when we live in a society where the expert services of dispute resolution professionals, including not only lawyers and judges but also mediators and …


The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

The goals of this essay are twofold. The first is to examine critically the practice of lawyers assisting clients in denying harms they commit and suggest some ways of changing that practice. Lawyers commonly presume that their clients' interests are best served by denial. Yet such a presumption is not warranted. Given the moral, psychological, relational, and sometimes even economic risks of denial to the injurer, lawyers should consider discussing responsibility taking more often with clients. The second is to explore several structural or systemic factors that may reinforce the practice of denial seen day in and day out within …


When People Are The Means: Negotiating With Respect, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

When People Are The Means: Negotiating With Respect, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

Most scholarship on negotiation ethics has focused on the topics of deception and disclosure. In this Article, I argue for considering a related, but distinct, ethical domain within negotiation ethics. That domain is the ethics of orientation. In contrast to most forms of human interaction, a clear purpose of negotiation is to get the other party to take an action on one's behalf, or at least to explore that possibility. This gives rise to a core ethical tension in negotiation that I call the object-subject tension: how does one reconcile the fact that the other party is a potential means …


Legislating Apology: The Pros And Cons, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

Legislating Apology: The Pros And Cons, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

Should apologies be admissible into evidence as proof of fault in civil cases? While this question is a simple one, its potential ramifications are great, and legislative and scholarly interest in the admissibility of apologies has exploded. Shortly after the idea of excluding apologies from admissibility into evidence was raised in academic circles three years ago, it rapidly spread to the policy arena. For example, California and Florida enacted laws in 2000 and 2001 respectively excluding from admissibility apologetic expressions of sympathy ("I'm sorry that you are hurt") but not fault-admitting apologies ("I'm sorrythat I injured you") after accidents. Eight …


Apology And Organizations: Exploring An Example From Medical Practice, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

Apology And Organizations: Exploring An Example From Medical Practice, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

In this Article, I focus on injuries committed by members of organizations, such as corporations, and examine distinct issues raised by apology in the organizational setting. In particular, I consider: (i) the process of learning to prevent future errors; (ii) the divergent interests stemming from principal-agent tensions in employment, risk preferences and sources of insurance; (iii) the non-pecuniary benefits to corporate morale, productivity and reputation; (iv) the standing and scope of apologies; and (v) the articulation of policies toward injuries to others.


The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen May 2012

The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

Jonathan R. Cohen

This article is the first of a two-part series critically examining the role of lawyers in assisting clients in denying responsibility for harms they have caused. If a person injures another, the moral response is for the injurer actively to take responsibility for what he has done. In contrast, the common practice within our legal culture is for injurers to deny responsibility for harms they commit. The immoral, in other words, has become the legally normal. In this Article, Professor Cohen analyzes the moral foundations of responsibility-taking. He also explores the moral, psychological, and spiritual risks to injurers who knowingly …