Further Thoughts on Deferral to Private Dispute Resolution Procedures: A Response

We would first like to respond to one aspect of Levy’s Article before discussing our proposal. Levy seems to argue as a general matter that “joint committee” determinations should not receive the same deference as arbitral resolutions. After establishing some of the basic analytic parameters in Part I of this Response, we argue in Part II that Levy’s distinction between joint committees and arbitral resolutions has no relevance to disputes concerning contractual rights, and is useful only in the context of disputes concerning statutory rights. In Part III, we outline a framework for analyzing internal union review procedures that will establish-without ignoring the distinction between statutory and contractual rights-the case for deference to internal union procedures when the union is accused of having breached its duty of fair representation.