Contradictions and Limitations of Final Offer Selection: The Manitoba Experience; A Comment

The short-lived experiment with final-offer selection (FOS) arbitration in Manitoba has evoked considerable conflict and controversy. Not only did business oppose FOS, but also the labor movement fought over and split on the issue. FOS was addressed to a real problem now facing organized labor, namely, the need to assist workers in the small, relatively weak bargaining units found in the fastest growing sectors of the economy in order to counter the changing structure of the labor force and the related decline in union membership. However, FOS addressed this problem by creating the risk that unions' willingness and capacity to strike would be eroded. In a comment, Grant argues that FOS has not been widely embraced by trade unions representing weaker bargaining units and that the researchers seem to take lightly the principle of free collective bargaining because, by submitting a dispute to a selector, the employer's right to engage in a work stoppage was unilaterally suspended.