FMCS Commemorates 50th Anniversary

Half a century ago on August 23, 1947, Congress created a new and independent agency of the United States Government to "prevent or minimize interruptions of the free flow of commerce growing out of labor disputes, to assist parties to labor disputes in industries affecting commerce to settle such disputes through conciliation and mediation."

Nineteen ninety-seven marks the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service=s Golden Anniversary; fifty years of service to collective bargaining and the nation=s labor-management community. We at FMCS take great pride in being part of an organization that has played such an important role in the continued vitality of American business, unions and the lives of American workers.

This is an invitation to you to attend the FMCS 50th Anniversary program, a two-day national symposium entitled "Fifty Years in Conflict Resolution: A Celebration of the Future." The symposium will be a gathering of our nation’s labor-management leaders and will provide an opportunity to learn about the transformation of collective bargaining and conflict resolution during the last 50 years.

As the title suggests, we intend to focus, not on the Service, but on the institution of collective bargaining and the role of mediation, their history and future. The symposium is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. on September 2nd and conclude at 4:00 p.m. on September 3rd, 1997. It will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., and will be followed immediately by our 1997 National Professional Development Seminar on September 4th and 5th.

We are honored to have AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and August Busch III, Anheuser-Busch Companies Chairman and CEO serving as our co-chairs for this event. In addition to these distinguished management and labor leaders, we have a number of nationally-prominent keynote speakers, including former Secretary of Labor, now Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Ray Marshall and Dr. Tom Kochan of M.I.T.=s Sloan School of Management. We have also extended invitations to President Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman.

The symposium will include a series of seminars Tuesday and Wednesday, focusing on labor-management relations in the private, public and federal sectors, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution. Among our notable seminar presenters are U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, who involved FMCS in mediating a sixty year old environmental dispute in Northern Minnesota, and a number of distinguished business and labor leaders.

During the symposium, FMCS will also convene the first ever meeting of the leaders of mediation services throughout the world. FMCS has become a model for conflict resolution agencies in several other countries and has provided technical assistance in the creation of others.

For more information about the 50th Anniversary, please call 202-606-8080.

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