Alternate Dispute Resolution in the Employment Arena

On the strength of the landmark 1991 Gilmer decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which set a precedent precluding employees from litigation against their employers if they had signed a pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreement, many U.S. companies have developed mandatory alternative dispute resolution (ADR) policies for employees. However, the issue is far from settled. A major segment of the U.S. labor and employment law community, including the powerful Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and numerous high-profile academics, contend that such agreements are unenforceable, and indeed should be unenforceable as a matter of policy.

This controversy was the theme of New York University''s 53rd Annual Conference on Labor. This long-standing, influential conference is the premier forum for bringing together legal practitioners, academics and researchers, government officials, representatives of companies and labor unions, and human resources specialists to explore solutions to problems in the American workplace. The Conference has recently been brought under the umbrella of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at the New York University School of Law, chaired by Professor Samuel Estreicher.

This valuable symposium addresses such provocative questions as the following:

• • What is corporate America doing with respect to ADR?
• • How have in-house ADR programs fared?
• • Is ADR an economically efficient method to resolve disputes?
• • Do due process protocols affect outcomes?
• • Is post-dispute voluntary arbitration a viable alternative to pre-dispute mandatory arbitration?
• • Are Gilmer agreements possible in the union setting?
• • How does arbitration address class actions and injunctions?
• • Is mediation the better form of ADR?

In addition to addressing the technical legal questions, this volume, which reprints the proceedings of the 53rd Annual Conference on Labor, features empirical work that provides data to answer many of the questions that form the basis of many of the policy arguments. This wide-ranging yet incisive survey of expert opinion and analysis in the field will be of great value to all professionals involved in the law and policy attendant on labor and employment in the United States.