THE VOLUNTARY ARBITRATION OF LABOR DISPUTES

Diverse conceptions about the relationship between collective bargaining and arbitration are at the root of some important current problems about the use of voluntary arbitration to resolve labor disputes. Should voluntary arbitration be considered, in any degree, as an extension of collective bargaining, or should it be basically conceived as an alternative to collective bargaining? In other words, does any part of the criterion of mutual acceptability-the very essence of collective bargaining-carry over when arbitration is invoked, or does "arbitration" connote a process through which employment terms are imposed upon the parties without any regard to the acceptability factor. There is the nub of the most important current labor arbitration question.

Nor can it be effectively dealt with as a problem of semantics and by simply defining "arbitration" as a process which excludes the mutual acceptability factor. That merely evades the difficult part of the question.