Cite as: 532 U. S. 105 (2001)
Syllabus
transportation workers' employment relationships and did not wish to unsettle established or developing statutory dispute resolution schemes covering those workers. As for the residual exclusion of "any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," it would be rational for Congress to ensure that workers in general would be covered by the FAA, while reserving for itself more specific legislation for transportation workers. Pp. 119-121.
(e) Amici argue that, under the Court's reading, the FAA in effect pre-empts state employment laws restricting the use of arbitration agreements. That criticism is not properly directed at today's holding, but at Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, holding that Congress intended the FAA to apply in state courts, and to pre-empt state anti-arbitration laws to the contrary. The Court explicitly declined to overrule Southland in Allied-Bruce, supra, at 272, and Congress has not moved to overturn Southland in response to Allied-Bruce. Nor is Southland directly implicated in this case, which concerns the application of the FAA in a federal, rather than in a state, court. The Court should not chip away at Southland by indirection. Furthermore, there are real benefits to arbitration in the employment context, including avoidance of litigation costs compounded by difficult choice-of-law questions and by the necessity of bifurcating the proceedings where state law precludes arbitration of certain types of employment claims but not others. Adoption of respondent's position would call into doubt the efficacy of many employers' alternative dispute resolution procedures, in the process undermining the FAA's proarbitration purposes and breeding litigation from a statute that seeks to avoid it. Allied-Bruce, supra, at 275. Pp. 121-124.
194 F. 3d 1070, reversed and remanded.
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined, and in which Souter, J., joined as to Parts II and III, post, p. 124. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 133.
David E. Nagle argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were W. Stephen Cannon, Pamela G. Parsons, Walter E. Dellinger, Samuel Estreicher, and Rex Darrell Berry.
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