DISPUTE MEDIATION

In collective bargaining, Dispute Mediation is a voluntary process which occurs when a third-party neutral assists the two sides in reaching agreement in contract negotiations, including initial contract negotiations, which take place between a company and a newly-certified union representing its employees.

In dispute mediation, FMCS mediators are in touch with both parties even before negotiations actually begin. The contact is triggered by the legally required notice of intent to open a collective bargaining agreement. During negotiations, effective mediators use knowledge of the parties and the issues "on the table" to guide negotiators through potential deadlocks to a settlement which both sides can accept. Mediators may make suggestions, and offer procedural or substantive recommendations with the agreement of both parties. However, they have no authority to impose settlements. Their only tool is the power of persuasion. Their effectiveness derives from their acceptability to both parties, their broad knowledge and experience in the process of collective bargaining, and their status as respected neutrals.

This has been the primary focus of this agency for nearly 50 years, with mediators working to avert or reduce the duration of work stoppages. In fiscal year 1995, FMCS was directly involved in 330 of the 409 work stoppages (81%) which ended during the fiscal year. In addition, we actively mediated 4,845 collective bargaining negotiations which did not involve a work stoppage.

The following highlights a few of our dispute mediation cases:

Metro Health Care/Minnesota Nurses Association

The Metropolitan HealthCare Council was created to represent five HealthCare corporations with 12 freestanding hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in conducting labor-management relations, including contract negotiations, with their five major unions representing hospital employees: Minnesota Nurses Association, Service Employees International Union, Minnesota Licensed Practical Nurses Association, International Union of Operating Engineers and the Association of Diagnostic Imaging Technicians.

The parties have had a long and contentious history. Whether bargaining in situations of nurse shortage or surplus, the relationship has been adversarial, with both sides engaging in brinkmanship.

Going into bargaining this year, both sides agreed to conduct negotiations using Interest-Based Bargaining (IBB), and further, to use the IBB process on a daily basis to improve the relationship. FMCS mediators conducted briefings, planning and extensive training sessions to prepare the participants to use IBB, and to deal with establishing impasse resolution procedures, ground rules for the bargaining, a communications strategy and a committee structure. Seven mediators trained more than 250 people for 15 different sets of negotiation. There were 14 "local" tables dealing with issues specific to particular hospitals or systems, and 32 members of a "metro" table to negotiate broader, common issues. All the negotiations occurred simultaneously, 26 meetings at the metro table and between one and five meetings each at the local tables.

Negotiations concluded successfully two weeks before contract expiration and without a ten-day strike notice being filed. No other multi-employer group in the country has successfully concluded negotiations using this process. The FMCS mediation team devoted more than 1,100 hours to the entire process, building the foundation for the negotiations, training the committees and facilitating the bargaining sessions.

In addition to the resolution of the multi-employer contracts, action plans were developed to help hospital management and employees work in a more open, collaborative manner and, ultimately, improve the delivery of health care services. A joint labor-management committee has been formed to coordinate the progress of individual hospitals with the action plans, provide a forum for problem solving of unresolved issues, and develop labor-management education programs.

Boeing/IAM

Boeing Aircraft opened negotiations in August 1995 with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), representing approximately 38,000 employees in Kansas, Oregon and Washington. Key issues in the contract negotiations were a slowdown in aircraft production and sales, employee dissatisfaction with executive bonuses at a time of worker layoffs, increasing costs from medical benefits, and the use of outside subcontractors by the company.

An FMCS mediator was active throughout the negotiations, and the National Director maintained communications with officials from the day bargaining began. The negotiations over complex economic, training, and job security issues, though difficult, were concluded successfully with a new four-year contract which took effect in December 1995.

R.R. Donnelly/GCIU, IAM, IBEW, IUOE

R.R. Donnelly & Sons is the largest printing company in the world. In October 1994, the company announced plans to close its plant in Des Moines, Iowa, with the loss of 875 jobs. The economic impact of the planned closing was so severe to the community that the Governor of Iowa convened a blue ribbon task force to attempt to prevent it. The task force membership included an FMCS mediator.

Officials representing the company and the seven unions at the plant indicated their willingness to enter talks to keep the facility open. R.R. Donnelly stated that costs had to be cut for the plant to remain competitive. The unions claimed that the company, while pushing for wage and work rule concessions, had not provided them with sufficient information to respond. The company agreed to give the task force sixty days to make "substantive progress" in exploring possible solutions.

The FMCS mediator convened a joint meeting of company and union bargaining teams which focused on everyone's mutual interest in securing a long-term future for the plant. Agreement was reached on a statement of principles to guide the negotiations and signed by all parties. The agreement was followed by 17 negotiating sessions, using an Interest-Based Bargaining approach. Following a round-the-clock marathon session as the deadline approached, an eleventh hour settlement was reached involving wage and work rule concessions, and ratified by all the unions. The plant remains open.

FMCS is currently working with the company and one of the unions, GCIU Local 86C, in a Relationship-By-Objectives program to try to mend the severely strained relationship.

Hughes Aircraft/CJA

The intense competitive pressures in some industries and the impact of that pressure on the company and its employees can make contract negotiations volatile and sensitive. This was the case with the Hughes Aircraft Company's Fullerton, California, plant in its negotiations with the Electronic and Space Technicians, affiliated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

FMCS had facilitated the company's 1991 contract with the union using Interest-Based Bargaining. The fiscal year 1995 negotiations, however, came on the heels of an announcement that 3,500 jobs at the Fullerton facility would be cut, and in that situation, the FMCS mediator determined that a more traditional bargaining approach would be necessary. In this highly-charged atmosphere, numerous joint meetings were required, but the mediator was able to facilitate agreement on a new three year contract.

Dispute Mediation Program Data

(1) Notifications to the Service by one or both parties desiring to modify a contract that is expiring, or for a specific reopening of an existing contract.

(2) Notifications from these two agencies regarding certification or recertification of bargaining units. Bargaining for an initial contract usually follows such certifications.

(3) Requests for mediation assistance from public sector parties where a state has a Public Sector Board with jurisdiction over labor contracts, but no state mediation service is available.

(4) Requests from the parties for mediation assistance where no notification to the Service has been filed.

(5) Where the Service elects to intercede for a significant reason to provide assistance in the absence of a notification having been filed with the Service.

(6) Case numbers assigned to notifications, certifications, and requests received by the Service. Some notifications are subsequently consolidated into a single case with a specific case number; therefore, the lower total of case numbers issued when compared to the total intake.

(7) Cases assigned to a mediator. The decision to assign a case involves many factors and not all cases are assigned.

(8) Closed by Final Report filed by the mediator assigned to the case or by consolidation of a case with other cases after assignment.

(9) Some cases are subsequently consolidated after assignment where it is determined that multiple parties will be involved in the same negotiations.

(10) Cases closed where the mediator met with both parties on one or more occasions.

(11) Cases closed where the mediator met with only one party on one or more occasions.

(12) Cases closed where mediation assistance did not require any meetings with the parties, but where the mediator was in contact with the parties during the negotiations.

(13) The number of meetings in closed dispute mediation cases where a mediator was present in a meeting between the parties.

(14) The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports work stoppages over 1,000 employees. FMCS reports all work stoppages.

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Last modified: February 09, 1998