Labor and employment arbitration law simplified. Authoritative coverage provides a description of the origin, development, and practice of labor arbitration. Text focuses on the fundamentals of the labor arbitration process and explores the major arbitration law issues, their importance, and the conflicting opinions on them.

The Nutshell on Arbitration Law is a concentrated summary of all the major aspects of the U.S. law of arbitration. It addresses the major facets of the law---for example, freedom of contract, federal preemption, and wide-ranging arbitrability---with a thorough sense of the relevant case law and the ultimately applicable legal rules. It identifies the various forms of arbitration---labor, commercial, employment, consumer, and securities---with a full awareness of their unifying characteristics and the features that make them unique. The volume also states the various dimensions of the current debate about arbitration within the court system and the legislature. In particular, the book highlights the instrumental role of the U.S. Supreme Court in bringing arbitration to a new day. The book is concise and complete---a must red for anyone interested in arbitration.

During his 40 years as a labor arbitrator, Roger Abrams has been appointed to resolve over 2,500 disputes. This insightful and authoritative treatise, Inside Arbitration: How an Arbitrator Decides Labor and Employment Cases, tackles the topic of labor arbitration from the perspective of the arbitrator. Abrams reveals how the decision maker, the arbitrator, goes about actually deciding a case. Presented in Q&A format, Abrams shares extremely practical guidance on more than 450 real-world questions, such as: How does the typical labor arbitrator selection process operate? What types of disclosures by the arbitrator are appropriate to reveal conflict, bias, or predisposition? How does an arbitrator react to the conduct of the parties at the hearing? Is it ever appropriate to have contact with the arbitrator before the hearing? Does the arbitrator do anything differently with a really big case--for example, a case with potential exposure of over $1 million? What kind of documents will an arbitrator find useful? What do arbitrators want to hear in opening statements? What is the impact of opening statements? How do arbitrators prefer exhibits to be marked and offered into evidence? Has a party's brief ever persuaded an arbitrator to reach a different conclusion after the hearing itself has concluded? If so, what are some of the persuasive factors? How does the arbitrator determine what the appropriate remedy is? How does an arbitrator deal with ambiguity in contract language? What should an advocate do if he or she thinks arbitrators are generally wrong on a particular issue? Should the arbitrator, in rendering his or her award, address each and every legal argument put forward by each of the parties? If not, why not? How does an arbitrator stop an advocate from bullying witnesses? What challenges does the arbitrator face in an employment arbitration that might not be present in a labor arbitration? This treatise is designed for advocates and representatives with all levels of experience. It includes basic guidance on the arbitration process for the benefit of the many new advocates in the past several years, especially on the union side, as well as more advanced discussions on arbitration subtleties for the benefit of experienced representatives. Advocates for parties in arbitration need to know how arbitrators react to certain issues and behaviors. This incredible resource provides "from the trenches" insights based on the author's vast experience and involvement in deciding labor cases. While a great arbitration advocate may not know the particular arbitrator who will hear his or her case, the advocate should know how arbitrators approach hearings and the issues to be resolved. This volume thoroughly guides users through all the essential issues.

An extension of Labor Arbitration: An Annotated Bibliography, this volume intends to provide a larger sense of history, of institutional development, and of the abiding questions that have been raised in and about labor arbitration. The editors focus on substantial professional and academic studies of labor arbitration in the United States and Canada, drawing material from books, monographs, analytical articles in professional and academic journals, and selections from the proceedings of the meetings of academic and professional societies. In response to the changing demands made upon arbitrators, the editors have extended their coverage to include alternative dispute resolution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. A large section of the book deals with employment arbitration and matters such as wrongful discharge. Coverage of arbitration outside North America is also expanded in the current volume, which is based upon computer searches of the most widely used data bases and on cover-to-cover searches of the twenty leading journals in the field.

This is the first book on a crucial issue in human resource management. In recent years, employers have begun to require, as a condition of employment, that their nonunion employees agree to arbitrate rather than litigate any employment disputes, including claims of discrimination. As the number of employers considering such a requirement soars, so does the fear that compulsory arbitration may eviscerate the statutory rights of employees. Richard A. Bales explains that the advantages of arbitration are clear. Much faster and less expensive than litigation, arbitration provides a forum for the many employees who are shut out of the current litigative system by the cost and by the tremendous backlog of cases. On the other hand, employers could use arbitration abusively. Bales views the current situation as an ongoing experiment. As long as the courts continue to enforce agreements that are fundamentally fair to employees, the experiment will continue. After tracing the history of employment arbitration in the nonunion sector, Bales explains how employment arbitration has actually worked in the securities industry and at Brown & Root, a company with a comprehensive dispute resolution process. He concludes by summarizing the advantages, disadvantages, and policy implications of adopting arbitration as the preeminent method of resolving disputes in the American workforce.