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Labor Relations Arbitrator

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When Trevor Petit walks into a room in his suit and tie, sets his briefcase on the table and says, "Let's get started," you can be sure things are as bad as they're going to get.

Petit is a labor relations arbitrator in Chicago. It's his job to resolve disputes between employers and employees (or employee unions). When all else has failed in an attempt to solve a problem between these two groups, arbitrators like Petit are called in to make things right.

"If an arbitrator is called in, it's usually a last-ditch effort to fix a very complicated situation," says Petit. "Both sides usually think they're right, and they refuse to come to a compromise on their own."

Although his role in dispute resolution is much like that of a judge -- weighing all the evidence and coming up with a verdict -- Petit says he often feels more like a parent.

"I'm not saying these cases are juvenile, far from it," he explains. "But the actual mechanics of arbitration often remind me of solving an argument between my two kids."

Petit points to an argument his twin daughters had over a particular toy. Both little girls, Shelley and Emily, had been playing with Emily's toys all day. But when Shelley tried to take Emily's favorite toy from her, Emily got upset and hit Shelley. Both little girls started crying and ran to their father.

"The first thing I say is 'What happened?' Then 'No, no, no. One at a time.' Then, they each tell me their side of the story -- Emily's story was that she had been nice all day sharing her toys, and then Shelley was mean to her and took her favorite toy. Shelley's was that Emily has said it was OK to play with her toys, but when she used one of the toys, Emily hit her," Petit says.

"You can see how both girls did something wrong in this situation," Petit says. "Shelley was wrong and got sent to her room for taking Emily's toy. But Emily's bad behavior was even worse because she hit Shelley. So Emily got sent to her room and had her toy taken away for a few days."

According to Petit, much of arbitration works like this situation with his daughters. There are rarely any clear-cut winners or losers, only degrees of punishment and reward.

"My conclusion is a compromise between both parties," Petit says. "For example, a union's request for job security may seem reasonable to me, but the evidence presented to me by the employer may convince me the wage increases they are asking for are not reasonable. So the union gets their job security clause, and the employer gets a certain percentage off the wage increases the union asked for."

Arbitrator Yuki Yi agrees. "Most of the time, it's not a win-lose situation," she says. "Usually, my decision is a kind of compromise for both parties in that some of each of their demands are met."

Petit is quick to point out that arbitration is not about finding the middle ground between two opposing points. Arbitrators use contract law as their guide to discover which side has the right to have its demands met. Sometimes this means making a decision that will have really tragic results. Petit says it's situations like this that make it difficult to remain neutral.

A few months ago, Petit was contracted to arbitrate over a case where an employee felt he had been unjustly fired. The employee had worked for the company for 10 years and had a clean record of employment.

"Even though I thought the employer's reaction was extreme and I knew my decision would make life very hard on the employee, I had to rule that he had been justly fired, because he had broken a stipulation in his contract," says Petit.

While emotional cases such as this one are difficult, Petit believes they are the minority in an arbitrator's career.

"Most of the time I am arbitrating disputes between union [representatives] and company negotiators who do this for a living," he says. "I'm usually the stranger in the room during these situations, and the people on each side of the table joke with each other during recesses."

While the mood is jovial on some occasions, situations can get pretty tense. Petit says he has had to do some "physical arbitrating" on a couple of occasions.

"It's silly, but a couple of times I've had to break up fist fights or keep people from kicking other people under the table during arbitration hearings," he says.

Breaking up boardroom brawls is not a common occurrence for people in this profession. Petit says brain is more important than brawn in this line of work.

"Arbitration takes a very analytical mind," he says. "One has to be able to sort through a whole truck full of information, decide which information nuggets to keep and which to discard, and then order them all in a way that will help you come to a decision," says Petit.

Petit believes being an arbitrator is challenging and, at times, emotionally draining work, but says it's worth the effort for people who believe in the whole process of arbitration. Petit believes the most rewarding part of this career is being able to come away feeling like justice has been done.

"When you come to a decision in an arbitration hearing and people from both sides of the fence feel you've made a just decision, or when you hear through the channels that people say you're a very neutral arbitrator, then you know you're doing your job well," he says.

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