Law Commons^™

Is There Arbitration After Burns?: The Resurrection Of John Wiley & Sons, Sue J. Henry

Vanderbilt Law Review

The decisions of the United States Supreme Court in John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, NLRB v. Burns International Security Services, Inc.,' and Howard Johnson Co. v. Detroit Local Joint Executive Board' have raised, but left unanswered, two significant questions regarding the proper balancing of the parties' interests: (1) does the successor employer's duty to arbitrate with the union under the predecessor's contract survive a corporate change?;and (2) if so, does the arbitrator have the power to impose the substantive terms of the predecessor's labor agreement on the successor? To answer these questions, this Article initially will analyze in …

Deference Of Jurisdiction By The National Labor Relations Board And The Arbitration Clause, Alan C. Rosser

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 1935, when the Wagner Act was passed, arbitration was not used extensively as a method of settling labor disputes. Most parties to labor disputes relied on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or the courts as means of settlement, rather than binding themselves to the decision of an arbitrator.' Gradually, however, with the increased avail-ability of more skilled arbitrators and the acute awareness of the costs of outside solution, arbitration has become a highly popular method of settling labor disputes. It is estimated that 94 percent of all collective bargaining agreements now provide for arbitration of grievances not settled …

Successorship And Collective Bargaining Agreements In Business Combinations And Acquisitions, Richard G. Vernon

Vanderbilt Law Review

Mergers, consolidations, and purchases of assets are important and frequent business transactions in our economy' and involve a great deal of planning and negotiating by the enterprises concerned. Until recently,the rights of employees and their representative labor unions generally were not considered to be a factor in these plans. In 1964, however, the Supreme Court, in John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, held that common law privity-of-contract principles, which lower courts traditionally had invoked to preclude survival of employees' rights, did not necessarily apply to collective bargaining agreements. Wiley was a nonunion corporation that had merged with a smaller …

Labor Law -- 1963 Tennessee Survey, Paul H. Sanders, Harvey Couch

Vanderbilt Law Review

I. ARBITRATION PROCESS

An active area of litigation today is concerned with the interrelation of the judicial process and the arbitration process in the settlement of labor disputes. It was observed in last year's survey that the Supreme Court of the United States had "embarked on the project of fashioning a body of federal common law governing the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements"' since the landmark decision in the Lincoln Mills case.

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II. PICKETING

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 amended section 8(b) of the National Labor Relations Act to make it an unfair labor practice for …

Comment: The Enforcement Of Agreements To Arbitrate, Irving Kovarsky

Vanderbilt Law Review

Three 1960 Supreme Court decisions' have limited the ability of litigants to challenge successfully the jurisdiction and award-making powers of labor arbitrators. The limitations imposed by the Court upon the judiciary's power to question the arbitrator, a reversal of traditional procedure, is of great significance and will unquestionably necessitate some readjustment on the part of management. This article attempts to place these recent developments in perspective and to suggest briefly certain practical changes in the attitudes of courts and contract negotiators that may result from them.

Labor Law And Workmen's Compensation--1959 Tennessee Survey, Paul H. Sanders, J. Gilmer Bowman, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

What is the meaning of the term "actual cash value" in the standard fire policy? The middle section of the court of appeals, following a prior Tennessee case and the weight of authority, held that the phrase is synonomous with "market value" only where the goods are readily replaceable in a current market. Where there is no market, or where the market value is inadequate to properly indemnify the insured, "actual cash value" means the "'value to the owner' or the loss he suffers in being deprived of the goods." Since the goods involved in this case were personal effects, …

The Proposed Uniform Arbitration Act Should Not Be Adopted, Alexander H. Frey

Vanderbilt Law Review

The primary reason why the proposed Uniform Arbitration Act should not be adopted is because, by an express provision in section 1, the Act is made applicable to "arbitration agreements between employers and employees or between their respective representatives." My experience as an arbitrator has been confined almost exclusively to labor disputes of which I have arbitrated hundreds. Consequently, I do not purport to be able to judge whether or not the proposed Act would be a valuable adjunct to the existing arbitration law in the area of commercial arbitration. But I am convinced that, if applied to labor arbitrations, …

Some Procedural Problems In Arbitration, Benjamin Aaron

Vanderbilt Law Review

By training and experience, lawyers are accustomed to deal with problems within a well-defined procedural framework. Familiarity with established rules of conduct, however archaic and nonsensical they may be, apparently does not breed contempt; on the contrary, it seems to enhance the average lawyer's feelings of security and self-confidence. Conversely, he is apt to become uneasy, irritable, even indignant, when compelled to function within a system of loose and flexible procedures, inconsistently applied according to a logic that to him is at best obscure and often inscrutable. The attorney who is not a labor relations specialist, and who only occasionally …

Informing The Arbitrator, Robert L. Howard

Vanderbilt Law Review

In any arbitration proceeding the representative of each party has a two-fold obligation of major importance to the arbitrator, the effective fulfillment of which is essential to the success of the arbitration process. In the first place, the arbitrator must be advised in clear and concise terms as to exactly what constitutes the issue or issues to be determined, which, of necessity, to be effective, must be preliminary to the presentation of the case proper. In the second place, it is, of course, equally important to have a clear presentation of each party's case after the issue has been formulated. …

Arbitrability Under Collective Bargaining Agreements, Clyde H. Brockett Jr., William Merlin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Under many collective bargaining contracts calling for arbitration of disputes, sooner or later a question has arisen whether the arbitrator has authority and power to arbitrate a particular issue. While this is obviously an oversimplification, it is a statement of the problem of arbitrability. Involuntary arbitration of labor disputes the question of the "scope of arbitration" may arise in either of two situations: (1) in the formulation of new contracts; or (2) in the disposition of grievances under existing contracts. This Note will consider only arbitration of the latter type.