Originally Posted by
NuGuy
My guess is that they're not negotiating, as such, but rather both sides are stipulating to the way certain items are considered, and then letting the arbitrators determine the final numbers.
This way you can guide, in some measure, the direction of the arbitration, avoid some nasty surprises, and you can still perform blame evasion at the end and say "that was the arbitrator's decision".
while I agree with you in theory, the whole reason we are in arbitration is because most items could not be agreed too. Anything that both sides could agree on has most likely already happened. I expect very little stipulating is going on at this point.
I actually think about now is when any real negotiating will start to occur. The arbitrators will certainly be signalling where they are going with this and giving both sides a chance to have some say in the final outcome via a negotiated list instead of zero say via an arbitrated list.