Labor-Management Arbitration Excerpt - Part One

Several instructional videos on labor-management arbitration have been made in the past. However, this video excerpt is from an actual arbitration taped at UCLA in the early 1970s. Paul Prasow (since deceased) is the arbitrator. The case concerns a bus mechanic at Greyhound in Los Angeles who was terminated for a rule violation and for insubordinate behavior. On his day off, when the grievant was in charge of his children, he took the children into the Greyhound repair facility and into a vending machine room to buy sodas. Apparently, it was a violation of a company rule for workers to be on the premises on days off. And having children on the repair premises might be a safety hazard. When confronted in the vending machine room, the grievant had a verbal exchange with a supervisor and was alleged to have thrown a cigarette at him. Other parts of the case reveal bad blood between the grievant and the supervisor stemming from a recent strike and picketing activity. In this excerpt, the union attorney leads the grievant through testimony on his version of the facts. (The arbitration was taped with consent of the parties using a black-and-white reel-to-reel video tape recorder. It was later updated to VHS format. No record could be found of the actual verdict in this case.) This is Part One.

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News & Politics

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• arbitration
• labor-management
• insubordination
• termination
• union-management