The Ascendancy of Employment Arbitrators in US Employment Relations: A New Actor in the American System?

In this paper, we survey the underpinnings of the trend towards employment arbitration in the United States, and its implications for the broader industrial relations system. Specifically, we address the question of whether or not employment arbitrators have been substituted for collective bargaining by the government to an extent that warrants their inclusion as an actor in the industrial relations system. We review developments in workplace dispute resolution in the United States, the literature that attempts to explain these developments and posit an assessment of the stability of employment arbitration, and employment arbitrators, as a central feature of the US industrial relations system

An Empirical Study of Employment Arbitration: Case Outcomes and Processes

Using data from reports filed by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) pursuant to California Code requirements, this article examines outcomes of employment arbitration. The study analyzes 3,945 arbitration cases, of which 1,213 were decided by an award after a hearing, filed and reaching disposition between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2007. This includes all the employment arbitration cases administered nationally by the AAA during this time period that derived from employer-promulgated arbitration procedures. Key findings include: (1) the employee win rate amongst the cases was 21.4%, which is lower than employee win rates reported in employment litigation trials; (2) in cases won by employees, the median award amount was $36,500 and the mean was$109,858, both of which are substantially lower than award amounts reported in employment litigation; (3) mean time to disposition in arbitration was 284.4 days for cases that settled and 361.5 days for cases decided after a hearing, which is substantially shorter than times to disposition in litigation; (4) mean arbitration fees were $6,340 per case overall,$11,070 for cases disposed of by an award following a hearing, and in 97 percent of these cases the employer paid 100 percent of the arbitration fees beyond a small filing fee, pursuant to AAA procedures; (5) in 82.4 percent of the cases, the employees involved made less than $100,000 per year; and (6) the mean amount claimed was$844,814 and 75 percent of all claims were greater than $36,000. The study also analyzes whether there is a repeat player effect in employer arbitration. The results provide strong evidence of a repeat employer effect in which employee win rates and award amounts are significantly lower where the employer is involved in multiple arbitration cases, which could be explained by various advantages accruing to larger organizations with greater resources and expertise in dispute resolution procedures. The results also indicate the existence of a significant repeat employer-arbitrator pairing effect in which employees on average have lower win rates and receive smaller damage awards where the same arbitrator is involved in more than one case with the same employer, a finding supporting some of the fairness criticisms directed at mandatory employment arbitration

Individual Employment Rights Arbitration in the United States: Actors and Outcomes

The authors examine disposition statistics from employment arbitration cases administered over an 11-year period by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to investigate the process of dispute resolution in this new institution of employment relations. They investigate the predictors of settlement before the arbitration hearing and then estimate models for the likelihood of employee wins and damage amounts for the 2,802 cases that resulted in an award. Their findings show that larger-scale employers who are involved in more arbitration cases tend to have higher win rates and have lower damage awards made against them. This study also provides evidence of a significant repeat employer-arbitrator pair effect; employers that use the same arbitrator on multiple occasions win more often and have lower damages awarded against them than do employers appearing before an arbitrator for the first time. The authors find that self-represented employees tend to settle cases less often, win cases that proceed to a hearing less often, and receive lower damage awards. Female arbitrators and experienced professional labor arbitrators render awards in favor of employees less often than do male arbitrators and other arbitrators

Shifting the Paradigm of the Debate: A Proposal to Eliminate At-Will Employment and Implement a Mandatory Arbitration Act

Labor and Employment Law Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change? Symposium held November 12-13, 2010, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana

Protecting Employees from Quid Pro Quo Neutrality Arrangements

Throughout the past several decades, union density in the United States has declined dramatically. One of the primary causes of this decline is staunch opposition to unionization by employers throughout the country

Shifting the Paradigm of the Debate: A Proposal to Eliminate At-Will Employment and Implement a Mandatory Arbitration Act

Labor and Employment Law Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change? Symposium held November 12-13, 2010, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana

Evaluating Employment Arbitration: A Call for Better Empirical Research

Since at least 1991, issues surrounding mandatory arbitration of employment and other disputes have intrigued, perplexed, angered, gratified, and confounded academics, politicians, lawyers, and others. As with many legal issues, the first wave of scholarly work centered on the law. As the law has pretty much settled, academics have turned to empirical work, focusing on how employment arbitration works, and how it compares to employment litigation. In part due to pressure from California legislation, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”), the nation’s leading provider of arbitration services, opened access to its data base. Owing to inevitable data limitations, most analyses have focused on outcomes—comparisons between litigation verdicts/judgments and arbitration awards. This work suffers from a serious selection bias, for there is no reason to believe that cases that result in arbitration awards are otherwise comparable to cases that have survived the several serious gauntlets that lie in the path of a case before it goes to trial. Because mediation is often an initial step in most employment arbitration system and arbitrators are not likely to consider dispositive motions, weaker cases are likely to get to a hearing in arbitration than in court. We wholeheartedly endorse good empirical work as an important means of understanding and addressing controversial policy issues, especially in the arbitration arena, and tried our hand at such work a decade ago. We have written this paper to encourage research that goes beyond evaluating awards within the AAA data set and to engage in a longitudinal study of the history of claims—from when they are initially filed with administrative agencies or arbitration organizations to when they are settled or adjudicated. After an overview of U.S. arbitration law with respect to employment claims, we examine current empirical work in this area, highlight its relevance, identify its limitations, and outline the broad contours of the type of work we believe is needed to advance the policy debate

Evaluating Employment Arbitration: A Call for Better Empirical Research

Since at least 1991, issues surrounding mandatory arbitration of employment and other disputes have intrigued, perplexed, angered, gratified, and confounded academics, politicians, lawyers, and others. As with many legal issues, the first wave of scholarly work centered on the law. As the law has pretty much settled, academics have turned to empirical work, focusing on how employment arbitration works, and how it compares to employment litigation. In part due to pressure from California legislation, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”), the nation’s leading provider of arbitration services, opened access to its data base. Owing to inevitable data limitations, most analyses have focused on outcomes—comparisons between litigation verdicts/judgments and arbitration awards. This work suffers from a serious selection bias, for there is no reason to believe that cases that result in arbitration awards are otherwise comparable to cases that have survived the several serious gauntlets that lie in the path of a case before it goes to trial. Because mediation is often an initial step in most employment arbitration system and arbitrators are not likely to consider dispositive motions, weaker cases are likely to get to a hearing in arbitration than in court. We wholeheartedly endorse good empirical work as an important means of understanding and addressing controversial policy issues, especially in the arbitration arena, and tried our hand at such work a decade ago. We have written this paper to encourage research that goes beyond evaluating awards within the AAA data set and to engage in a longitudinal study of the history of claims—from when they are initially filed with administrative agencies or arbitration organizations to when they are settled or adjudicated. After an overview of U.S. arbitration law with respect to employment claims, we examine current empirical work in this area, highlight its relevance, identify its limitations, and outline the broad contours of the type of work we believe is needed to advance the policy debate

Trends in the Introductory Communication Course from 1956 to 2016: A Systematic Review of the Results of 11 National Survey Studies

Researchers have conducted surveys of the introductory communication course for more than 60 years, starting with two seminal studies in 1956 and 1965, followed by a series of nine replicative studies extending from 1970 to 2016. This systematic review examines the results from those 11 surveys. The results of that review are presented here, including historical trends observed in the thematic categories that indicate how the course has remained consistent or changed during the time period of the surveys. This study concludes with recommendations to inform decision-making about the future of the introductory course, based on the identified historical trends as well as impact factors in the context of higher education today