Oct. 13, 2015

Arbitration Info responds to New York Times

Re: “Brutalized Behind Bars in New York State” (Ed., Sept. 30) Incidents involving physical violence by public service employees are matters of grave concern, but labor arbitration is not the culprit. The internal inconsistency of the assertions that arbitrators often “split the baby” and unions win a substantial majority of discipline cases demonstrates the value of consulting the available empirical evidence. A University of Minnesota study of over 2000 discipline arbitrations found that employers’ disciplinary decisions were fully sustained 50% of the time and fully reversed in only 21% of cases, with “split” decisions issued in 29% of cases. Another…