Labor Arbitrator Development Students Continue Unique Program
Photo: Students in the Labor Arbitrator Development Program: Karen Alford, Aisha Jones, and Jacia Falcon (left to right).
The 17 members of the Labor Arbitrator Development Program (LADP), a 15-month program designed to assist labor and employment relations professionals transition to neutrality and build labor arbitration practices, met in-person in April 2024. The cohort, which has engaged in monthly virtual learning since its first in-person week in October 2023, reunited in-person in Washington, DC, where the three days of learning focused on public sector (federal, state, and local) labor arbitration and an introduction to workplace mediation.
The first session began with a discussion of various pre-hearing, hearing, and post-hearing practices and featured a panel of arbitrators, who are members of the National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA): Ira Jaffe ILR, Alan Symonette, Scheinman Advisory Board Member and President-Elect of the National Academy of Arbitrators, Rosemary Pye, Cornell Law School, and Keith Greenberg, ILR. NAA Arbitrator and ILR Extension Faculty Member Sarah Miller Espinosa, ILR 1995, moderated the lively discussion.
The cohort then had the opportunity to learn from several guest speakers, including Terri Brown, Director of Arbitration, National Mediation Board, Arthur Pearlstein, Director of Arbitration Services and Senior Mediator, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, May Silverstein, ILR, Acting President of the Society of Federal Labor and Employee Relations Professionals (SFLERP), and Randi Weingarten, ILR, President of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. Panels of advocates shared their perspectives on topics ranging from postal arbitration, collective bargaining impasse neutrals, and grievance arbitration.
Several esteemed arbitrators and mediators, including Scheinman Institute faculty and members of the Institute’s Advisory Board served as instructors. The program’s faculty for the DC sessions included: Alan Symonette, Scot Buchheit, Mike Eagleson, Sarah Miller Espinosa, Keith Greenberg, Homer La Rue, Katrina Nobles, and Cheryl Teare.
The members of the cohort are currently engaged in shadowing arbitrators and continue to participate in virtual learning on a monthly basis.
The program will culminate with an in-person week long practicum in NYC in January, 2025.