Streamlined Dispute Resolution
Grievance Arbitration
Grievance arbitration is the preferred non-judicial method for resolving disputes over claims that an employer has breached its collective bargaining agreement with the unions representing its employees. Lawyers from Bredhoff & Kaiser briefed, argued, and won the seminal Steelworkers Trilogy cases setting out what continues to be the framework for grievance arbitration.
Today lawyers in the firm handle a full range of grievance arbitration cases, ranging from individual just-cause discharge cases to matters raising novel issues arising from the Covid pandemic. We also handle arbitrations that concern complex financial and accounting matters, such as whether a company has fully compensated workers under contractual profit-sharing arrangements. The firm’s grievance arbitration work spans numerous trades, including firefighters, police, mailhandlers, hotel workers, musicians, steelworkers, and others.
Interest Arbitration
Interest arbitration is a procedure whereby a neutral party decides what terms should be included in the collective bargaining agreement when the parties cannot resolve the agreement in negotiations. The practice began in the public sector where strikes are generally prohibited by law. Today, the process has been extended to many private sector relationships.
Lawyers in the firm have extensive experience conducting interest arbitrations, and in advising clients in developing offers to be presented in arbitration. These arbitrations routinely require mastery of complex economic, financial and accounting issues and the preparation of highly technical testimony by expert witnesses. Our work in this area regularly involves representing unions against private sector employers in multiple industries, as well against public sector empoyers, including the Postal Service and local police and fire departments.