Welcome to Champions of Conflict
Learn To Be The Best Advocate You Can Be
Hi there! Welcome to Champions of Conflict. Let me introduce myself. My name is Andrea Dooley and I am a labor arbitrator. If you know what that is, you are in the right place. I’ve been hearing labor disputes as a neutral for ten years. Before that, I managed safety programs, bargained national contracts, and represented unions in hundreds of arbitrations, administrative hearings, and other legal disputes. I’ve written two books about labor arbitration (The Beginner’s Guide to Labor Arbitration Practice and The Labor Arbitration Career) and published cases and articles on related topics.
Here’s my hope for this newsletter: I can provide union representatives and human resources professionals with straightforward information about handling workplace disputes and labor grievances up to and including arbitration. I won’t be providing legal advice. Although I am a lawyer, I encourage you to bring your legal issues to, well, your lawyer. Nothing I share here should be construed as legal advice. These are practical tips and a neutral perspective on improving labor relations and the outcomes of disputes that arise in the workplace.
For now, this newsletter will be free. I only ask that you share it with your colleagues and provide me with feedback and questions that you have about labor disputes so that this newsletter can be dynamic and useful to you in your work. Over the next couple of days, I will post a few older things I’ve written so you have a sense of what I’m talking about, and then I plan to post just once per week so I don’t flood your inbox.
For today, I will just share a little of my philosophy as an arbitrator along with a little labor history.
While arbitration has grown in popularity among corporations and other legal entities as a way of enforcing contracts, labor arbitration grew out of the Labor Movement and is the final step in a non-judicial grievance framework created by unions and employers. Labor Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution that is unique to the unionized workplace. However, the strategies I will discuss in this newsletter will have broader application to other kinds of workplace disputes. I hope!
When Unions and Employers negotiate labor contracts, Unions rarely have to make concessions. Most concessions come from the Employer, giving up control over setting wages or hours of work, for example. The only exceptions to this principle are the grievance procedure and the no-strike clause, two concessions that the Union makes. The traditional way that a union grieves a workplace problem is to withhold labor, also known as going on strike. By agreeing to a grievance procedure and a no-strike clause, a union agrees not to have a strike or take other labor action that deprives the employer of its labor and instead will resolve disputes within the grievance procedure. The grievance procedure “takes away” the union’s right to strike. To ensure labor peace and stability, there’s a strong incentive to use the grievance procedure through arbitration.
This is a policy that forms part of the backbone of American economic policy. In the past year, our country has wondered with bated breath whether shutdowns in the rail, trucking, and automotive industries would derail a good economy. We have yet to understand the impact the SAG/AFTRA and WGA strikes will have on entertainment in the coming years. Employers and the government want labor stability and peace, and the grievance procedure is how they get it.
So am I pro-union or pro-employer? I am pro-collective bargaining. I believe collective bargaining is the best way for workers in this country to make a better life for themselves, and it’s the best way for employers to achieve productivity and stability. Good labor relations make for good management and good unions and I enjoy being a part of that process. If you are interested in becoming better at good labor relations, please subscribe!