THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD'S DEFERRAL TO ARBITRATION: AN EMPIRICAL CASE STUDY ANALYSIS (PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA; BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS)

This study examines the National Labor Relations Board's policy of deferring to an arbitrator's decision after that decision has been issued. The Board's deferral policy has existed since its 1955 Spielberg decision and has been frequently altered and modified throughout the years, most recently in the 1985 Olin case. The Board's continuing debate over the appropriate deferral policy has raised a number of normative and empirical questions, including whether deferral to arbitration adequately protects statutory rights and how much deferral actually occurs. This study examines what actually happens in the deferral process--how arbitrators and the NLRB deal with and dispose of these deferral cases.;Major findings include: the Regional Offices refused to defer in very few cases pre-Olin; Olin virtually eliminates the small number of refusals to defer and removes certain pre-Olin protections; only a small pecentage of arbitral opinions carefully examine unfair labor practice issues; and, the low rate of arbitral examination of statutory issues combined with the high rate of deferral and the nature of the deferral standards raise serious questions concerning the adequacy of protection of parties' statutory rights. Recommendations include the need for research in other Regional Offices, more communication between the NLRB and arbitrators, and significant alterations in or possible elimination of the NLRB's deferral policy.;To answer the questions raised by the deferral policy, this study analyzes arbitral decisions and Regional Office actions at two Regional Offices, Philadelphia and Boston. This study uses Regional Offices as the appropriate level of analysis because approximately 85 percent of NLRB cases are resolved at that level. The Regional Office case files from which the information is taken covers a two and one-half year period, encompassing cases decided prior to and after the Board's most recent deferral decision, the Olin case. The primary mode of analysis is based upon qualitative examination of case files to determine Board and arbitral decision making criteria. Basic descriptive statistics indicate how many cases are decided in a certain manner and whether there are any significant changes in decision making pre- and post-Olin.