Law Commons^™

Predictability Of Arbitrators' Reliance On External Authority?, Paige M. Skiba, A. Levinson, E. O'Hara O'Connor

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Should arbitrators consider authority-such as statutes or case law-external to the collective bargaining agreement when deciding labor grievances? Do they rely on such external authority? If so, do they do so in particular circumstances or in certain types of cases? To provide more insight on this often-debated issue, we have amassed a new data set of hundreds of labor arbitration awards spanning a decade. In contrast to previous research, we find that the overwhelming majority of awards do not cite to any external authority (statutes, administrative authorities, case law, or secondary sources). Yet, only a small fraction of awards explicitly …