Statement of Theodore J. St. Antoine Before the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

Testimony_St_Antoine_040694.pdf: 205 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Mandatory Arbitration: Bane or Boon?

Buy a new car that turns out to be a lemon and you may find you can\u27t sue. Fine print in the sales contract often restricts you to arbitration. That means presenting your case before a private person instead of a judge and jury. And the arbitrator may be someone drawn from a panel compiled by the car seller

Protection Against Unjust Discipline: An Idea Whose Time Has Long Since Come

The law seems able to absorb only so many new ideas in a given area at one time. In 1967 Professor Lawrence Blades of Kansas produced a pioneering article in which he decried the iron grip of the contract doctrine of employment at will, and argued that all employees should be legally protected against abusive discharge. The next dozen years witnessed a remarkable reaction. With a unanimity rare, if not unprecedented, among the contentious tribe of labor academics and labor arbitrators, a veritable Who\u27s Who of those professions stepped forth to embrace Blades\u27 notion, and to refine and elaborate it -- Aaron, Blumrosen, Howlett, Peck, Stieber, and Summers, to name only some. But the persons who ultimately counted the most, the judges and the legislators, hung back. In the 1960s the country had taken vast strides at both the federal and state levels, to stamp out discrimination in employment based on such invidious and particularized grounds as race, sex, religion, national origin, and age. It was as if we needed a pause to catch our breath before venturing on into more open and exposed territory. Now, as we enter the 1980s, there are signs of quickening interest by both courts and legislatures in broader protections for employees\u27 job interests, and the time seems ripe for an appraisal of where we have arrived and where we might be headed. I see no reason to retrace at length the trail that has been blazed by my many predecessors. My principal purpose will be to consider the numerous practical problems that must be resolved if we are to effectuate the concept of protecting employees generally against unjust discipline. First, however, I shall briefly survey the existing body of law, both here and abroad, with special emphasis on the significant changes occurring in the United States over the past two decades. Following that will come a summary of the various major proposals for dealing with the unfair treatment of employees. Finally, I shall focus on some concrete suggestions concerning appropriate procedures and remedies

Labor Unions and Title VII: A Bit Player at the Creation Looks Back

During the debates over what became Title VII (Equal Employment Opportunity) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I was the junior partner of the then General Counsel of the AFL-CIO, J. Albert Woll. There were only three of us in the firm. The middle partner, Robert C. Mayer, handled the business affairs of the Federation and our other union clients. Bob was also the son-in-law of George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, which gave us a unique access to Meany’s thinking. The Federation had only one in-house lawyer, Associate General Counsel Thomas Everett Harris. Tom was an aristocratic Southerner and a brilliant lawyer who had clerked for Justice Harlan Fiske Stone on the U.S. Supreme Court. He and I were the labor law technicians, and we briefed and occasionally argued the court and administrative cases in which the Federation became involved, usually in an amicus capacity

Workers\u27 Compensation in Michigan: Costs, Benefits and Fairness: A Report to Governor James J. Blanchard\u27s Cabinet Council on Jobs and Economic Development from Theodore J. St. Antoine, Special Counselor on Workers\u27 Compensation

On September 14, 1983, Governor James J. Blanchard issued the following statement and charge in appointing Theodore J. St. Antoine as Special Counselor on Workers\u27 Compensation: In the past two decades, workers\u27 compensation has been the subject of much discussion and debate among all segments of the industrial community and the several branches of state government in Michigan. During this period, three separate commissions have engaged in extensive analysis of the Michigan Workers\u27 Compensation Law. In 1980, and again in 1981, substantial amendments were added to the statute. Nonetheless, the controversy over this system continues. Important and deserving interests are at stake. The employee who is the victim of industrial accident or disease is entitled to prompt, reasonable compensation. The employer who must pay should be burdened with no more than fair and appropriate costs. The public generally must be assured of a vibrant, competitive economy in this State

Mandatory Arbitration: Bane or Boon?

Buy a new car that turns out to be a lemon and you may find you can\u27t sue. Fine print in the sales contract often restricts you to arbitration. That means presenting your case before a private person instead of a judge and jury. And the arbitrator may be someone drawn from a panel compiled by the car seller

Gilmer in the Collective Bargaining Context

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

Gilmer in the Collective Bargaining Context

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

The Wagner Act: Labor Law\u27s Signal Event

There\u27s no fun in stating the obvious. Sophisticated professionals bestow few kudos on those who declaim the conventional wisdom. Even so, one would have to be far more perverse than I, in this fiftieth anniversary year of the National Labor Relations Act, to suggest that the Wagner Act, wasn\u27t the most important (and at the time of it- passage the most controversial) development in the last half-century of labor law

Contract Reading\u27 in Labor Arbitration

A quarter century ago, I used the phrase contract reader to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. This phrase has almost invariable been misunderstood to refer to reading or interpreting the contract. When I spoke of the contract reader, it was in the context of judicial review of an award. My point was this: When a court has before it an arbitrator\u27s award applying a collective bargaining agreement, it is as if the employer and the union had signed a stipulation stating: What the arbitrator says this contract means is exactly what we meant it to say. That is what we intended by agreeing the award would be \u27final and binding.\u27 In this sense an erroneous interpretation of the contract by the arbitrator is a contradiction in terms. This paper updates this thesis, emphasizing what may be the hottest issue in judicial review: When may a court set aside an arbitral award on the ground that it violates public policy? It also addresses the contract interpretation aspect of the contract reader - namely, How should an arbitrator go about reading or interpreting a contract