Policy Capturing Exercise on Labor Arbitrators

Decision modeling techniques have been very successful in capturing the policies of a wide variety of decision makers. This study attempts to model the decisions of labor arbitrators so that the arbitration process can be better understood. Policy capturing provides a systematized way of examining the trade-offs between issues that an arbitrator has to make when granting an award. The issues this study examines are efficiency, fairness, effect on worker, clear language of the contract, past practice, negotiating history, and previous awards. The data for this study is collected by first reading the facts and arguments of an actual arbitration case and then assigning a score to each of the issues. This data is then analyzed using discriminant and regression analysis techniques.