Arvid Anderson, a City Labor Giant, is Dead

Arvid Anderson, who brought stability to the public-employee bargaining process through strong leadership with a light touch and the establishment of binding arbitration for wage disputes nearly a half-century ago, died July 22 in an assisted-living facility in Minneapolis, Minn. He was 94 years old.

A Midwesterner for much of his life aside from the time between 1967 and the end of 1987 in which he served as the first Director of the city’s Office of Collective Bargaining and Chairman of its Board of Collective Bargaining, Mr. Anderson previously played a crucial role in creating a similar structure in Wisconsin, the first state to permit collective bargaining for public employees.