CDW Letter - Binding Arbitration

CDW’s most recent letter to the Hill, this one focusing on binding interest arbitration:

 No Compromise on Binding Interest Arbitration

Dear Senator:

As you and your colleagues continue to debate the numerous important issues currently

confronting our nation, we write to express our strong opposition to any effort to

pass provisions included in the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409/S. 560), and to ask

that you oppose any related legislation presented under the guise of “compromise.”

The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), a group of more than 580

organizations, is united in opposition to all provisions in the Employee Free Choice Act

(EFCA) because we believe this bill severely undermines long standing principles of

balance and fairness in federal labor law.

While the issue of card-check organizing has been the focal point of most of the debate

surrounding EFCA (and, rightfully so, since card-check would deny working men and

women the opportunity to privately decide whether to join a union), EFCA’s imposition

of government-mandated, binding interest arbitration on private employers of all sizes

will be as detrimental to workplace rights, and even more threatening to job creation than

card-check.

Now, proponents of EFCA have begun a campaign to make the radical seem reasonable;

suggesting the EFCA’s binding interest arbitration is comparable to the dispute

arbitration that can currently be used in the private sector. Nothing could be further from

the truth, and these attempts by EFCA supporters to normalize an idea as onerous as

government intervention through binding interest arbitration show desperation in regards

to a bill whose support is regularly decreasing.

The differences between dispute arbitration and EFCA’s mandatory binding interest

arbitration are extremely significant. Dispute arbitration takes place when both parties

enter into an agreement to settle a dispute, as an alternative to litigating a disagreement

with particular contractual terms. Binding interest arbitration, as proposed in EFCA,

allows federal government arbitrators to dictate terms of a labor contract if parties have

not yet come to a voluntary agreement on a first contract within 120 days of good-faith

bargaining. EFCA’s proposed binding interest arbitration forces employees, their union

representative and the employer to accept a contract (written by the arbitrator) for two

years.

In dispute arbitration, the arbitrators interpret the law or previously agreed to contracts or

contract terms with a general right of the parties to appeal. However, under EFCA’s

binding interest arbitration, the arbitrators, who are unlikely to have any relevant business

experience, will dictate the terms of a labor contract that involves almost every facet of

how a business is run, including pay, benefits, and work rules with no right of the parties

to appeal the arbitrator’s final contract.

In short, under dispute arbitration, arbitrators are interpreting contracts and the law,

which is essentially what they are trained to do. Under EFCA, the arbitrators are making

business decisions on every aspect of company operations, even though they may lack

any business experience, let alone have any expertise with the pertinent industry or

specific company.

Clearly, there is nothing common about EFCA’s binding interest arbitration. The

continued attempts to find a so-called “compromise” on EFCA are running into the same

road blocks—the impossibility of negotiating on proposals as radical and out-of-touch as

binding interest arbitration and card-check.

We therefore urge you to oppose this job-killing legislation, and to oppose any legislation

offered under the guise of “compromise” that alters the nation's long standing and time

tested collective bargaining process by imposing any form of mandatory binding

arbitration. More information, analyses, and polling data showing that more than 72

percent of voters believe that binding interest arbitration is “unwise and risky,” can be

found on our coalition’s website at www.myprivateballot.com.

Sincerely,

THE COALITION FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORKPLACE