Presidential Emergency Board Appointed In LIRR Dispute

Today, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order creating a Presidential Emergency Board to help resolve an ongoing dispute between the Long Island Rail Road Company and some of its employees.
The Presidential Emergency Board will provide a structure for the two sides to resolve their disagreements.  The Presidential Emergency Board will hear evidence and, within 30 days, will deliver a report to the President recommending how the dispute should be resolved.
President Obama also announced that he intends to appoint the following members to Presidential Emergency Board No. 244:

• Ira F. Jaffe – Chair, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244
• Roberta Golick – Member, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244
• Arnold M. Zack – Member, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244

SMART Transportation Division President John Previsich, who is assisting LIRR General Committee of Adjustment GO 505 with this round of negotiations, expressed satisfaction with the establishment of a presidential emergency board.
“The board members are highly respected arbitrators with years of experience in our industry and we welcome their participation in bringing this matter to a satisfactory conclusion,” Previsich said.
Ira F. Jaffe, Appointee for Chair, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244
Ira F. Jaffe has been an arbitrator and mediator of labor and employment disputes since 1981 and has presided over more than 4,500 cases in a wide variety of industries in the private and public sectors.  Mr. Jaffe serves on over 60 permanent arbitration panels and has served on four separate PEBs, one in 2001, two in 2007, and one in 2011 in which he served as Chair.  Mr. Jaffe is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) and served as the National President of the Society of Federal Labor Relations Professionals in 1990.  As an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University Law School, Mr. Jaffe taught courses in labor and employment arbitration and mediation, labor law, collective bargaining and labor arbitration, and agency and partnership.  He is a Charter Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and has arbitrated and mediated a wide variety of employee benefits disputes.  He is also a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.  Mr. Jaffe received a B.S. from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School.
Roberta Golick, Appointee for Member, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244
Roberta Golick has been an arbitrator and mediator since 1974, focusing on labor-management disputes.  During this time, she has handled thousands of cases in both the private and public sectors.  She served as the 2011-12 President of the National Academy of Arbitrators.  This is Ms. Golick’s fourth Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) appointment.  She was a panel member most recently on the 2011 PEB regarding a dispute between major freight rail carriers and their unions.  From 1974 to 1982, Ms. Golick served as an arbitrator/mediator at the Massachusetts Board of Conciliation and Arbitration.  Ms. Golick is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, and sits on its First Circuit Credentials Committee.  She is featured in the newly released documentary, The Art and Science of Labor Arbitration, which focuses on arbitrators whose careers and contributions are landmarks in labor law policy and in the resolution of industrial disputes.  Ms. Golick is the 1996 recipient of the Cushing-Gavin Award, given annually by the Boston Labor Guild.  She received a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University, and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.
Arnold M. Zack, Appointee for Member, Presidential Emergency Board No. 244
Arnold Zack has been an arbitrator and mediator of over 5,000 labor disputes since 1957 and a member of five Presidential Emergency Boards, serving as Chair twice.  He served on Presidential Emergency Board No. 243 involving a coalition of the Nation’s freight carriers and two coalitions representing eleven railroad unions in 2011.  He has just completed a nine year term as Judge on the Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal.  He was the President of the National Academy of Arbitrators from 1994 to 1995.  From 1990 to 2000, he was the Chair of the Essential Industries Dispute Settlement Board in Bermuda, and the Chair of the Essential Services Dispute Settlement Board there from 1998 to 2001.  He was the founder and a member of the Board of Control of the Center for Sio-Legal Studies at the University of Natal in South Africa from 1986 to 1990, where he designed dispute resolution systems for employment disputes in South Africa.  He has also served and taught as a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School since 1985.  He is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.  He has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Wertheim Fellow.  He received a B.A. from Tufts University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.