This study examines arbitrators' treatment of external law in 106 cases decided between January 1980 and June 1985 in which at least one of the parties had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. The author finds that although approximately half of the arbitrators cited external law in their opinions —more than would be assumed from the literature —most of these arbitrators engaged in only cursory or conclusory consideration of relevant external law. Other findings are that few arbitrators explicitly refused to consider external law, and the rate of arbitral consideration of external law did not change in response to a 1984 NLRB decision that made it more likely that the NLRB would defer to an arbitrator's decision.
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