The Impact of Student GPAs and a Pass/Fail Option on Clinical Negotiation Course Performance

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

The Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution Techniques to Resolve Public Sector Bargaining Disputes

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

The Impact of Negotiator Styles on Bargaining Interactions

This article examines the different techniques and bargaining traits associated with negotiator styles. It explores the Cooperative/Problem Solving, Competititve-Adversarial, and Competitive/Problem-Solving styles to determine which ones are more common among practicing lawyers, and which one is likely to be employed by proficient negotiators

The Use of Non-Judicial Procedures to Resolve Employment Discrimination Claims

This article discusses the use of non-judicial procedures to resolve employment discrimination claims under the different federal civil rights laws. The two major areas covered involve the use of private arbitration, based upon Supreme Court decisions permitting private employers to require their employees to agree to resolve all of their employment disputes through arbitral procedures, and the possible use of administrative procedures similar to those used by the National Labor Relations Board to resolve unfair labor practice charges. The article explores ways in which the rights of employees not represented by labor organizations could be protected in arbitral proceedings significantly structured by their employers

The Benefits to Be Derived from Post-Negotiation Assessments

Lawyers negotiate regularly, but few ever take the time when they have completed such critical interactions to ask themselves how they did. If they hope to improve their bargaining capabilities, they should take a few minutes after their more significant interactions to ask themselves some basic questions. Were they thoroughly prepared, and did they establish elevated but realistic aspirations? How did the negotiation stages develop? What bargaining techniques did they employ, and how did they counteract the tactics used by the other side? What did they do that they wished they had not done? What did they not do that they should have done? Through such inquiries, attorneys can significantly enhance their bargaining skills

The American Worker: Junior Partner in Success and Senior Partner in Failure

This article explores the degree to which American workers are treated like second-class parties by corporate leaders. When business firms do well, share holders and managers obtain significant financial gains, but rank-and-file workers do not usually share in those gains. On the other hand, when firms do poorly, thousands of employees are laid off, while managers obtain bonuses for their forthright actions designed to curtail labor costs. These developments correspond directly to the decline of labor organizations in the United States. When unions represented 35 percent of private sector workers in the late 1950s and 1960s, wages and benefits were increased annually. Once union membership began to decline, employers decided they no longer had to consider employee interests. Today, with fewer than 8 percent of private sector employees in labor organizations, managers exercise complete control over their employees. If this trend is to be reversed, either unions have to develop new methods to appeal to new-age workers in the white-collar and service sectors or Congress will have to enact laws requiring corporate managers to consider the interests of regular employees when they make business decisions

The Relevance of the NLRA and Labor Organizations in the Post-Industrial Global Economy

As the United States continues to transition from a manufacturing to a post-industrial service-oriented economy that is directly affected by global competition, the strength of domestic labor organizations has declined and private sector union membership has fallen to below 8 percent. Most unions continue to behave like the craft and industrial organizations of the mid-1900s. They employ appeals that once worked well for blue collar manufacturing workers to appeal to new-age white collar and service personnel who view traditional unionization as working class. If labor organizations hope to appeal to twenty-first century employees, they must devise strategies that will resonate with persons who view themselves as professionals. They need to devise organizing goals that reflect their hopes and aspirations. They need to focus on such issues as professional development and salary inequities between top management and regular workers. The National Labor Relations Act has become more and more irrelevant, since many professional workers are now excluded from coverage as supervisors, even if they only marginally direct the work of others, or managerials even though they exercise no meaningful control over their basic employment conditions. If the NLRA is to have continuing relevance, it must be amended to extend coverage to new-age workers - most of whom have indicated that they would like to have some form of collective voice vis-a-vis their corporate employers