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 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 1996, FMCS was directly involved in 330 of the 409 work stoppages (81%) which ended during the fiscal year. In addition, we actively mediated 4,897 collective bargaining negotiations which did not involve a work stoppage.

McDonnell Douglas Corporation/ International Association of

McDonnell Douglas Corporation, one of the nation’s largest aerospace manufacturing companies and defense contractors, employs 6,700 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) at its St. Louis facility. In the 1996 contract negotiations, three major issues were on the table: job security, outsourcing and wages, and health care benefits for future retirees. The company offered a proposal which would have protected 5,000 of the St. Louis jobs, along with a general wage increase and health care benefits packages. The offer was rejected by union negotiators.

Bargaining was contentious, and, ultimately, unproductive as the IAM-represented production and maintenance workers went on strike in early June. Little progress toward a new contract was made in several joint meetings with FMCS mediators, as negotiations broke off again in mid-August. The strike continued through the summer.

Finally, in September, FMCS Director John Calhoun Wells and Congressman Richard Gephardt, in whose St. Louis Congressional District McDonnell Douglas is located, brought the negotiating committees back together with federal mediators in the offices of the House Minority Leader in the U.S. Capitol. The parties met for three hours, reconvened the following week for seven hours, and then the next day began at 9 a.m. and continued meeting around the clock for thirty hours until agreement was reached.

The preliminary agreement was ratified the next week by local union members and a 94-day strike was ended.

UNO-VEN, a joint venture between the Unocal Corporation and Petroleos de Venezuela, the Venezuelan state oil company, operates an oil refinery in Lemont, Illinois employing 460 members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) Local 7-517.

FMCS’s active involvement began with the contract expiration in January 1996. There were numerous major local issues still in early stages of negotiation, and national oil policy negotiations were going on as well. Traditionally, local issues were discussed and preliminarily negotiated, but serious bargaining did not get underway until the national oil policy negotiations concluded. History indicated that once the national negotiations were concluded, the parties would quickly drop their wish lists of local issues and settle rapidly.

The union and company had significant differences over work rules, contract language, and flexibility issues.

Bargaining talks progressed very slowly, and when national negotiations were concluded, it became apparent that the company was not going to "roll over." The company prepared a "best and final" offer containing the desired changes. The union voted the offer without a recommendation and it was rejected soundly. The union made a counter proposal and gave notice that it was withdrawing the 24-hour extension. A "modified final offer" was presented to the union and rejected, ending the talks. UNO-VEN began locking the workers out within two hours and operating the refinery with management and temporary workers.

In early July, the union indicated that it was considering modifying its position on some key issues and the parties later agreed to meet with the federal mediator. Nearly a dozen meetings were held over two months until talks again broke off, this time over the employer’s demand for an alternate, two tiered wage structure, which the union considered a national issue.

Dairyland Power is a large electric generation cooperative based in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. It supplies power to 29 member cooperatives located in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Dairyland directly employs 600 people, while the combined corporate and co-op employment is over 1,500. Dairyland’s power generation facilities include nuclear, coal and hydroelectric.

De-regulation of the utility industry forced Dairyland and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to re-examine a labor-management relationship defined by traditional adversarial bargaining, large numbers of grievances and a general relationship at best characterized by general distrust and combativeness. The parties called FMCS and requested assistance. FMCS responded by helping the parties establish a labor-management committee, and provided training for committee members in improved communication, listening skills, joint problem-solving and consensus decision making. Top union and corporate officials were also trained by FMCS regarding the process, practice and benefits when the parties were faced with an upcoming contract expiration.

The parties consulted with FMCS and determined that they didn’t want to risk an improving relationship through traditional adversarial contract negotiation. FMCS trained the union and management negotiating committee in a non-adversarial, Interest-Based Bargaining approach for their negotiations. Dairyland and the IBEW, using an FMCS mediator, successfully concluded the contract bargaining using a total Interest-Based approach.

Upon the successful completion of this Interest-Based contract negotiations, FMCS was asked by Dairyland and the IBEW to train each of its employees in the principles and techniques of Interest-Based problem solving. FMCS responded and today, Dairyland Power, the IBEW and the employees enjoy the fruits of what each would characterize as a "true partnership." With FMCS assistance, Dairyland and the IBEW have transformed themselves from adversaries to partners, united in their efforts to confront and overcome the challenges of a rapidly changing deregulated utility industry. According to Dairyland and IBEW, it is doubtful that any relationship transformation would have occurred without FMCS assistance. The consequences of job loss, poor customer service, inefficiencies and the possible threat to the continued survival of Dairyland were avoided.

In May 1996, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 voted to strike and began picketing King Soopers Markets in the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area. Safeway stores, which had joined with Soopers in a single management bargaining unit, locked out its unionized workers when the strike began. Nearly 14,500 meat cutters and retail workers were idled. In the next two weeks, the strike/lock-out spread to Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Fort Collins.

The issues in the dispute included job security, in the form of management’s wish to use vendor stocking and pre-packaged meat, modification of job classifications, changes in full and part-time workers’ scheduling, health benefits, streamlining grievance procedures and modifications to the contribution requirements to pension funds.

An FMCS mediator was active in the case from the outset, attempting to prevent the work stoppages, and then coordinating with the parties concerning their positions and the timing of joint meetings. Negotiations were particularly tough, complicated by a dramatic impasse at one point, intense media coverage and pressure from local elected officials. However, following numerous joint negotiating sessions, the mediator was able to get the parties to hammer out a tentative agreement, and the contract was ratified by the full membership two days later, ending the 44-day work stoppage.

FMCS efforts in traditional dispute mediation, combined with our preventative mediation services, illustrate our value-added contribution to the labor-management community. The Good Samaritan Society in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, employs 23,000 workers in 26 states. In the Twin Cities, employees are represented primarily by United Food and Commercial Workers, Locals 653 and 789. FMCS has historically been very active in contract negotiations covering these nursing homes. Prior to the 1995-1996 negotiations, company and union leader recognized that the challenges facing the nursing home industry called for unique solutions to such growing problems of staff turnover and absenteeism.

Long-term care facilities have tremendous pressures in recruiting and retaining employees because of the physical and mental pressures of work, levels of compensation and hours, intensive local job competition, and a highly regulated workplace. The Samaritan long term care facilities are 50% funded by Medicare and Medicaid. The cost per new employee is estimated at over $4,000 in their first month of employment. In an effort to combat job pressures and reduce turnover costs, the Good Samaritan Society and UFCW, with FMCS assistance, jointly determined during their contract negotiations to empower the employees at seven nursing home locations to develop solutions to these continuing employee problems.

Using FMCS training expertise and facilitation skills, over 75 employees were trained and placed on joint labor-management staffing committees at each of Good Samaritan’s seven long term care facilities. These committees are empowering front line employees and supervisors with true decision-making authority and the skills and ability to "make a difference and be a part of the solutions."

Initial contract negotiations are critical as they form the foundation for the parties’ future labor-management relationship. A bad start in the relations between the employer and the employees’ union may be felt for years afterward, and ultimately injure the economic health of the organization. Such negotiations are often more difficult than contract renegotiations since they frequently follow contentious representation election campaigns in which the parties adopt hardened positions toward each other. The negotiations can be further complicated by one or both of the parties’ inexperience in collective bargaining and labor-management relations. Current data indicates a lower rate of agreement on initial contracts, even with the assistance of FMCS mediators, and a higher incidence than in contract renewals of strikes or lockouts, threats and actual use of permanent replacement workers. Unfair labor practice complaints are also more common in this environment.