Imagine you are the Chief of Police for a major metropolitan city. For various reasons morale in your department is at an all-time low and you have heard rumors that many officers, who are in the union are considering going on strike, also referred to as the "blue-flu." One of the concerns for the low morale is pay and benefits. Despite your efforts the Mayor and the City Council has disapproved your requests to increase pay and benefits.
How would you avoid a strike?
There are a couple of options that the union can take: they can try to renegotiate the contract, and if it doesn't look good, they can agree to extend the contract with cost of living increases until the contract is settled. Or they can submit to arbitration /mediation. It would be an agreement between the police and the City to send to binding arbitration and whatever results from the mediator, all parties would agree to abide by the results. The City and the police union wouldn't want to go on strike, because it would look bad for the City, because public safety is important for the city. Having the police on strike would put the city in jeopardy of increase in crime.
An example is the case with the NYPD, who had to go into binding arbitration. They worked without a contract until the contract was settled. The NYPD's rank-and-file union struck a long-awaited contract deal with the city. New York City reported the new tentative contract was in place, covering over 23,800 NYPD employees. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which has been working without a contract since 2010, has gone into binding arbitration over failure to resolve previous contracts. The new deal included retroactive pay raises and requires that all NYPD officers be outfitted with body cameras by the end of 2019.