United States of America

In contrast to the other countries covered in this book, the adjudication of individual employment disputes in the United States is increasingly taking place through private arbitration, with awards normally remaining confidential to the parties only, rather than adjudication in a public institution with publicly accessible judgments. This growth of private arbitration over alleged infringements of statutory employment rights stems from the US Supreme Court’s rulings requiring the courts to defer to arbitrators’ decisions both in unionised and non-unionised workplaces. Moreover, the US Supreme Court has held that an employer/employee agreement to arbitrate a statutory claim, rather than litigate it, does not entail any waiver of an employee’s statutory rights; rather it is simply the substitution of an arbitral forum for a court forum.