By: David L. Gregory and Francis A. Cavanagh
After the English coalminers’ strike, circa 1984, the world
changed. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher crushed the miners
and Scargill, as fully—indeed, perhaps more so—as her fellow
conservative President Ronald Reagan crushed the striking air
traffic controllers in the United States at the beginning of his
first term in 1981.
In this essay, we reflect on the past quarter century of ADR in
labor management relations in the United States and in the United
Kingdom, critically assessing the trajectory and the evolution of
ADR in labor management matters, with particular reference to the
ADR of discharge and discipline grievances of unionized
workers. With this platform context for the past two decades,
we ruminate on the similarities and contrasts, such as they may be,
in the daily working realities of labor-union-represented workers
in the U.S. and in the U.K., paying particular attention to the
resolution of grievances in labor management relations. We
also offer some preliminary thoughts on the likely future of ADR in
labor management relations in the U.S. and the U.K.
The two centerpieces anchoring this essay are the Advisory
Conciliation and Arbitration Service, established via the
Employment Protection Act of 1975, and the heightened due process
and progressive discipline protections and standards in the
Employment Act of 2002.