Arbitration

Programs that provide an impartial third person who is selected by the parties to a dispute or appointed by an outside body, who presides over a hearing at which both parties have an opportunity to be heard, and who issues an award that both parties have agreed in advance to accept as final. Included are compulsory arbitration in which the consent of one of the parties is enforced by statutory provisions, voluntary arbitration which involves mutual and free consent by both parties, interest arbitration in which the terms of a contract are settled, and grievance arbitration which concerns the violation or interpretation of an existing contract.