Background
In 1959, Congress passed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) to make sure that labor unions met certain fiscal responsibility standards and to guarantee that unions would incorporate democratic principles into their governing structures. Congress created the Bureau of Labor-Management Reports, which in 1963 became the Labor-Management Services Administration, to administer the LMRDA. In 1984, the Labor-Management Services Administration became known as the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS).
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) provides a number of protections, including a minimum wage and guaranteed premium overtime pay, to many American workers. Employees who believe that their rights under the FLSA have been violated are entitled to seek relief against the employer.
One basis of protest that disqualifies the claimant from eligibility for receiving unemployment benefits occurs when the claimant quit the job voluntarily by leaving without good cause. The unemployment system was designed to insure or compensate workers for wages they lost due to lack of work as a result of the general economic conditions or other reasons and not due to any fault of their own. All states, therefore, have provisions disqualifying a worker who left his employment voluntarily and without a good cause for doing so.
One of the most common reasons a labor union and an employer turn to arbitration as a means of dispute resolution is that it is a less expensive alternative to a trial (or a strike). Based on the format of the arbitration and the use of attorneys, this is generally true. There is great variance on the actual costs of arbitration, however, and it is a good idea to understand how those costs are determined.
