Synopsis By: Lurie - Proceeding Author: Betty Binns Fletcher

The role of private bargaining and grievance arbitration in eliminating discrimination in the workplace.In Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition, the Court held that the employees’ substantive rights under Title VII cannot be pursued at the expense of orderly collective bargaining under the NLRA. If the union is unable or unwilling to press the discrimination claim as vigorously as the employee thinks necessary, the employee is relegated to the statutory machinery, at his own expense. For those discrimination cases that have been arbitrated and published, that author has seen little uniformity in the way the arbitrators dealt with such claims; specifically, for arbitrators to apply Title VII as it is applied by the Courts (arbitrators seem to impose a much higher standard of proof on the grievant than would a court or the EEOC).