In his 1960 paper, Professor Mittenthal defined a past practice as “the understood and accepted way of doing things over an extended period of time.” In this article, he notes that, in the intervening years, the parties have taken steps to express their obligations in writing, and many employers have negotiated highly restrictive arbitrability clauses. …

Richard Mittenthal traces the evolution of labor arbitration over the past 50 years, from the model described by George Taylor – as a substitute for strike, with the arbitrator serving as a problem-solver as well as a judge – to the current formal and legalistic relationship, wedded to case precedent. The causes of this evolution …