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Prior research has argued that management has an advantage in many grievance cases largely because it enjoys the discretion to pursue these cases or otherwise as it chooses. Conversely, organized labor has far less discretion inasmuch as it must pursue serious grievances for which positive outcomes cannot reasonably be expected It was recently demonstrated that grievances “filed in the name of the union” may provide an important exception to this principle. This empirical assessment of arbitration cases (N = 520) extends these arguments from the context of the grievance to that of arbitration, an arguably more valid and generalizable context for such an assessment. The results indicate that “filing in the name of the union” does provide a substantive edge in arbitration outcomes, even while controlling for the various types of arbitration cases.

Prior work has demonstrated that management enjoys a substantive edge in many grievance cases largely as a function of its discretion to pursue or dismiss these cases as it chooses. Conversely, organized labor has far less discretion in as much as it must pursue serious grievances which may be less viable. It is argued here that grievances “filed in the name of the union” may provide an important exception to this principle. This field assessment of format grievances (N = 538) indicates robust differences in the outcomes of grievances between those “filed in the name of the union” and those filed in the more traditional manner. This tendency may provide some countervailing influence for the grievant to the advantages posited for management.

This paper uses 1992 nonunion employment arbitration awards to examine how parties currently use arbitration outside collective bargaining. It presents descriptive data on the costs of arbitration. It compares employer and employee claims, and finds that employees win higher damage awards. Employees recover a higher proportion of the damages they claim or have a better outcome than employers, notwith‐standing the theory that an arbitrator will rule in favor of employers because they have more resources to pay the arbitrator. While both employers and employees have lower outcomes when the arbitrator is paid a fee, this appears to be because the fee‐paying cases are higher stakes claims, and higher stakes claims result in proportionally lower damage awards. The findings tend to contradict the theory that employment arbitrators will be biased in favor of employers in a nonunion setting.