Statutory Rights and Arbitrator Authority: Labor Arbitration after Pyett I. Statutory Rights in Labor Arbitration after Pyett

An assessment of the Pyett decision, in which the Supreme Court validated CBA compulsory arbitration of bargaining unit members’ federal statutory claims. Attorney Barnard examines the CBA language relied upon by the Court; the criteria that the Court set for a CBA waiver of the right to litigate a statutory claim; the ways in which lower courts have viewed the same criteria; and the important distinction between the waiver of forum and the waiver of substantive rights. Attorney Phair Barnard discusses the weight given arbitrators’ awards dealing with contractual claims in subsequent litigation of statutory claims, the union’s duty of fair representation, and the standard of review of arbitrators’ decisions on statutory claims.