Deferral is a term that hardcore labor lawyers, like yours truly, know, but unless you are a seasoned labor practitioner, you probably don’t know what it means. In the NLRB’s 1955 Spielberg ruling, the Board decided that it would defer to arbitrators’ decisions when the proceedings appeared to have been fair and regular, the parties…

In 1984 the NLRB held that it should defer action if the contractual issue under a collective bargaining agreement is “factually parallel” to an unfair labor practice issue, an arbitrator is presented with relevant facts to resolve the issue, and an arbitration award is not “clearly repugnant” to the National Labor Relations Act. Thirty years…