A description of the initial application of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as enforced by the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service. ERISA was created to provide employees with “insurance” against the termination of pension and welfare plans. The arbitration of pension disputes on behalf of individual employees varies with …

Contract (interest) arbitration has deeper roots in American labor relations than does grievance arbitration and, when utilized, is regarded as a more significant process. The author provides a brief historical perspective of the arbitration of contract terms, contrasts attitudes of management and labor toward the process as disclosed by the author’s own survey of various …

An examination of the circumstances under which certain rights created under a collective bargaining agreement “vest” or “survive” the expiration of the agreement. The author draws a distinction between monetary rights that have accrued and have been earned and non-monetary rights exercisable only in futuro. The author concludes that monetary rights such as vacation pay, …