Arbitration and Wrongful Termination Claims: An Evaluation of Fairness and Efficiency in Labour Dispute Resolution

Abstract

This paper shall review the position of arbitration in wrongful termination claims, especially regarding its effectiveness as a system of labour relation dispute resolution. Employment disputes specifically wrongful dismissal lawsuits stem from contractual breaches and violations of labour laws which may take time and cost a lot of money. Arbitration is seen as a suitable process for resolving disputes more effectively because it is faster, slightly cheaper, and does not attract public attention. As is to be expected there are some problems, some minor issues to be addressed. As for the problems the main issue regards the nature of arbitration and the fact that a major principle against it is the imbalance of power between employers and workers. Used in the study is both a synthesis of the current literature and qualitative interviews conducted with stakeholders, namely, arbitrators, legal commentators and employees. The implication herein is that while arbitration is effectiveness-oriented, it lacks procedural equity which is overshadowed by employer-biased scales. Based on the findings of this paper, this paper asserts that while using arbitration as a means of minimizing the time and money spent on wrongful termination claims, changes should be made in an effort to tackle the issues of partiality and bias.