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About

The National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) was founded in 1947 as a not-for-profit honorary and professional organization of arbitrators in the United States and Canada. Members are chosen by involved parties to hear and decide thousands of labor and employment arbitration cases each year in private industry, the public sector, and non-profits in both countries.
Admission standards are rigorous, in keeping with the goal of establishing and fostering the highest standards of integrity and competence. The NAA encourages Labor Management and Employment arbitrators to apply for membership.
The Academy’s purposes are educational and collegial. As a friend of the court, the Academy has participated in appellate litigation in both the United States and Canada where major issues affecting the institution of arbitration are involved. It also works cooperatively with sister organizations such as government agencies, professional organizations, institutions, and learned societies in the field of labor-management and employment relations.

The Academy’s Annual Meetings – like those of the Southwest / Rockies Region – are open to all who wish to attend and feature speakers who are labor-management and employment relations practitioners, arbitrators, judges, government officials, and law school and university professors. Many papers presented at prior Annual Meeting are available in a searchable database of the Academy’s Proceedings, at https://naarb.org/proceedings-database/.

The Region has grown to include NAA labor and employment arbitrators and mediators located in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Some of our members have two professional locations, from Georgia to Missouri through California. The Region’s members serve to resolve disputes throughout the entire United States and its territories. The parties who select us as arbitrators come from federal or public sector entities, postal service, railroad, airlines, and private sector in which labor organizations represent the employees as their exclusive bargaining agent.

NAA arbitrators and mediators must adhere to the Code of Professional Responsibility for Labor Arbitrators (“Code”). The parties select us to resolve disputes pursuant to processes the parties have mutually agreed through joint negotiations. Arbitrators often refer to themselves as “creature of the contract,” meaning their occupation focuses on “the relationship between employer and union as expressed in their contract,” i.e., their collective bargaining agreement.

Mission Statements and regulations:

  • Labor Management arbitrators are guided by the Professional Code of Responsibility for Arbitrators of Labor-Management Disputes of the National Academy of Arbitrators, the American Bar Association, the American Arbitration Association
  • NAA members are also frequently called upon to arbitrate employment claims in the non-collective bargaining sector.  Cases arising under an employer promulgated arbitration plan require particular vigilance on the part of arbitrators to ensure procedural fairness and to protect the integrity and reputation of workplace arbitration.  This is reflected in the NAA’s Due Process Protocols endorsed by the American Bar Association, the American Arbitration Association and other interested agencies.  These Due Process Protocols are intended to assist arbitrators in deciding whether to accept a case and to provide guidance as to how such a case might be fairly conducted and concluded. They supplement the Code of Professional Responsibility for Arbitrators of Labor-Management Disputes. Members who undertake employment disputes must be alert to other applicable codes of ethics (e.g. code of Ethics for Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes) federal and state statutes or regulations, or any other ethical code or rules adopted by the parties.
  • The sole purpose and mission of the NAA, as with the Southwest / Rockies Region, is both educational and collegial. Activities include such things as the regular hosting or co-hosting of educational conferences; serving as a friend of the court in appellate litigation impacting labor arbitration; contributing to the research of critical workplace and labor arbitration issues; and aiding and promoting the professional development, mentoring and selection of a diverse bench of labor arbitrators able to “provide effective service to the parties.

The Southwest Rockies Region:

  • The Academy functions through its geographic regions, of which the Southwest / Rockies Region is one. The Southwest / Rockies Region (a.k.a. “SWR Region” or “NAA-SWR”) currently covers Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
  • The SWR Region was first established in or around the late 1940s and later merged with the Rockies Region, forming the SW Rockies Region. Since 1977, the Region has sponsored a labor-management conference for labor and employment practitioners nearly every year. The conference is held every spring in either Houston or Dallas, Texas, barring pandemics or similar forces majeure.
  • The Southwest Rockies / Region is a separately chartered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
  • We in the SWR are ecstatic to announced that our esteemed SWR Member and former Region President William McKee has been elected to serve a term as President of the National Academy of Arbitrators, 2023/2024.
  • The National Academy currently has 572 members in the United States and Canada; and also one member from South Africa. The SW Rockies Region currently has 37 members who reside in 7 states but hear cases potentially all over the U.S. and even offshore/overseas.