Julius G. Getman

Labor Arbitration and Dispute Resolution

There is a widespread perception that our judicial system needs changing. It is expensive, unnecessarily technical, intrusive on private relations, and it gives unfair advantage to the wealthy and powerful. Labor arbitration, by contrast, is frequently pointed to as the paradigm of private justice. It is understandable that labor arbitration is widely admired. When it functions properly it achieves in an impressive fashion the goals by which any system of dispute resolution should be measured. These are: (1) Finality. Once decided, are cases likely to be retried or appealed? (2) Obedience. Are the decisions put into effect or are they rendered meaningless by subsequent refusals to carry them out? (3) Guidance. Do the decisions provide necessary guidance to the parties involved in the dispute? Can they subsequently structure behavior in a reasonable fashion and avoid future litigation? (4) Efficiency. Are the majority of disputes settled without a formal hearing? When cases are tried, are the procedures adequate, flexible, and suited to the particular issue? Are the benefits achieved from the system economical compared to the costs? (5) Availability. Is the dispute-resolution machinery routinely available without undue expense to people whose behavior is governed by the system, and are they provided with adequate representation? (6) Neutrality. Do the decisionmakers avoid favoritism and bias for one side or another? (7) Conflict Reduction. Does the entire process, including the adjudication, lead to more amicable relations and contribute to mutual respect among the potential disputants? (8) Fairness. Will the disputes be resolved in a way that appropriately recognizes the interests of the various parties likely to come before the system?

The National Labor Relations Board Voting Study: A Preliminary Report

THE National Labor Relations Act provides that if a majority of employees choose union representation, the union shall serve as the exclusive bargaining agent for all employees in the unit.1 The decision concerning union representation is typically made in an election preceded by a campaign in which the union tries to induce the employees to vote for representation and the employer tries to induce them to vote against it. The Labor Board, which conducts the election, has devised elaborate and complicated rules governing campaign behavior, particularly of employers. Because of the number, complexity, and significance of the Boards rules, it is common for the losing party to file objections to the election. In fiscal 1970, objections were filed in 1207 of 8437 elections conducted.2 Each objection, whether or not meritorious, involves considerable investigation, frequently a hearing, a written report, sometimes an appeal to the Board and sometimes a court case challenging the Boards decision. The cost of administering such a system--the expenditure of time, money and personnel by the government, by the union, and by the employer-is substantial. Moreover, although the normal remedy for a violation of the Boards campaign rules is an election rerun, if the Board deems the violation sufficiently serious it can order the employer to recognize and bargain with the union even though the union lost the election.3 Thus the Boards rules concerning the assumed impact of certain types of campaign tactics are of great significance to employers and unions.

Industrial Relations in Transition: The Paper Industry Example

II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IP AND THE PAPERWORKERS UNION ....... 1815 A. The Relationship Prior to 1986 ............................ 1815 1. Bargaining History .................................. 1815 2. The Effort to Restructure Production ..................... 1817 B. The 1986 Negotiations .................................. 1820 1. The Demand for Concessions at the Androscoggin Mill ........ 1820 2. Negotiations Company-Wide ........................... 1821 C. The Strikes of 1987-88 .................................. 1824 1. Goals and Strategies ................................ 1824

NLRB Regulation of Campaign Tactics: The Behavioral Assumptions on Which the Board Regulates

The process by which a single union is selected to represent all employees in a particular unit is crucial to the American system of collective bargaining. If a majority vote for union representation, all employees are bound by that choice and the employer is obligated to recognize and bargain with the chosen union. The selection process is controlled by the National Labor Relations Act,1 which applies to almost all nongovernment employees,2 and takes place primarily through elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.3 Typically, union representation elections are preceded by a campaign -much like a political campaign-in which the union tries to persuade employees to vote for union representation and the employer tries to persuade them to vote against it. The Board has developed an elaborate system of rules4 to govern campaign tactics:

The Common Law, Labor Law, and Reality: A Response to Professor Epstein

In A Common Law for Labor Relations: A Critique of the New Deal Labor Litigation, Professor Epstein claimed to have undertaken serious criticism and review of the American system of labor relations as it has been structured by two pieces of New Deal era legislation. Although such a work could have been of great value to diverse disciplines, Epsteins lacks empirical scope and raises methodological questions. Instead of grappling with the subject matter seriously, Epstein merely uses the late nineteenth century form of the common law as a benchmark against which to compare the modern statutory schemes set forth in the Norris-LaGuardia Act and the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, he never answers the questions a genuine critical evaluation would have to address. In this response, the authors argue that Professor Epsteins work does not contribute in any way to our existing knowledge about labor law, it sheds no light on the reality of labor relations, and it adds nothing to our understanding of the impact labor law has had on society.

Union Representation Elections: Law and Reality: The Authors Respond to the Critics

In Union Representation Elections. Law and Reality (hereinafter Law and Reality without cross-reference), we examined the desirability of continued National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regulation of pre-election campaigning. Our central finding, based upon a study of thirty-one elections, and interviews with over 1000 employees, was that unlawful campaigning has no greater effect on employee voting behavior in a union representation election than does lawful campaigning. Hence, we recommended that the Board should no longer attempt to distinguish between lawful and unlawful campaigning; that the results of an election, once conducted, should be final; and that speech should be wholly free that the Board should neither set aside elections nor find unfair labor practices based on oral or written communications by an employer or a union. In place of Board regulation of pre-election campaigning, we suggested that each party be given the opportunity to respond to the campaigning of the other a form of private regulation. Since the employer can presently hold meetings of employees on working time and premises, we recommended that the union be given a similar opportunity when the employer exercises this right. Finally, we recommended the use of quicker and more effective remedies than are presently available when an employer engages in retaliatory actions against union supporters, particularly during a union organizing campaign. These recommendations, and the findings on which they were based, have met with a mixed reaction in the various forums in

The Emerging Constitutional Principle of Sexual Equality

Sexual equality, a matter for joking only a few years ago, seems today on the verge of being incorporated into the Constitution as a basic right. Courts, once committed to the doctrine that the sexes are inherently unequal, seem now eager to recant. The Supreme Court too has revised its former approach to sex discrimination, although without apparent enthusiasm and without formal announcement of a change of policy. In Reed v. Reed,1 the Court invalidated an Idaho statute which gave a preference to the man whenever two persons, a man and a woman equally entitled by degree of relationship to the deceased, filed letters seeking appointment as administrator of an estate. In Stanley v. Illinois,2 the Court held that denial to an unwed father of a hearing on his fitness before removing a child from his custody

The civil wars in US labor: birth of a new workers’ movement or death throes of the old?, by Steve Early

of land owners (173). Interestingly, he finds that by the 1970s, many sugar workers preferred reliable wage labor – backed by the protections of Brazil’s 1963 Rural Workers’ Statute (ETR) – to tenantry, a reversal of the longstanding association between land and economic security (176). Workers’ preference for wage labor vs. land access often depended on micro-environmental conditions affecting their farming experience. Surprisingly, Rogers depicts Brazil’s authoritarian military state (1964–1985) as having provided workers with a ‘competing authority’ to contest the power of the planter class (162). Beginning in the mid-1960s, the military government’s bureaucrats tried to rationalize plantation labor through the creation of new, environmentally calibrated ‘task tables’ which governed workers’ remuneration. These became important tools in workers’ ongoing negotiation with their employers for just compensation. However, the tables themselves were open to interpretation. And after 1963, a new cohort of labor contractors arose to help planters circumvent the protections offered by both the ETR and the military’s increased rationalization of rural labor. The contractors act as middlemen between planters and undocumented or ‘clandestine’ laborers, who thus lack access to state social services and the labor courts (165–7). In this period, former tenant farmers were increasingly expelled from plantations and replaced by transient wage labor. The ex-tenants populated growing towns in the sugar zone, contributing to a trend toward urbanization across Brazil. Rogers’ analysis of these developments provides a clear description of modern-day proletarianization, useful for classroom discussion. The Deepest Wounds persuasively demonstrates that, particularly in regions devoted to monoculture destined for global export, environmental and labor histories are inextricably intertwined. For readers not centrally concerned with Brazil, more discussion (such as in a final chapter) about the applicability of this regional study to the analysis of sugar cultivation elsewhere would be useful. It is worth considering whether the dynamics of this particular story were shaped more by the production demands of sugar itself or more by the social and political dynamics of modern Brazil; this is not a question that Rogers endeavors to answer.