Alternative Dispute Resolution

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Contracts

FMCS is authorized under the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1996 to provide dispute resolution services to local, state and federal government agencies. However, FMCS receives no appropriated funding for these services, and therefore operates under interagency agreements to recover costs for the mediators’ time and expenses. An example of this type of contract occurred when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) approached FMCS for assistance in reducing a large backlog of private sector discrimination complaints filed with EEOC by providing mediation to facilitate the resolution of the complaints. There are currently 90,000 private sector EEO complaint cases in backlog status.

In August 1996, FMCS entered into a $250,000 interagency agreement to mediate between 350 to 400 cases. FMCS began by assisting EEOC in designing the mediation program, and has continued to participate in its administration. After initial complaint screening by EEOC, cases are forwarded to FMCS Directors of Mediation of Services for assignment to field mediators. As of this date, FMCS has helped resolve more than 120 of these cases. The agreement was extended to August 1998.

EEOC also contracted with FMCS to mediate internal EEO complaints. Approximately, 40 cases will be handled under this agreement through the end of fiscal 1998.

The U.S. Access Board was created in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to ensure access to facilities for people with disabilities. By legislation, the Access Board is responsible for drafting rules concerning disability access to telecommunications equipment, government and other public facilities, children’s play areas and other recreational facilities. In drafting rules for disabled children’s access to play areas, the Access Board enlisted the services of FMCS to conduct a Regulatory Negotiation.

Through the Regulatory Negotiation, or "Reg Neg" process, FMCS brought together a wide array of professionals, experts, interested parties, and access/disability advocates to create a recommendation for new rules that would eventually govern newly-built playground equipment and play sites, including schools, playgrounds, day care centers, "soft contained play" areas, such as those at some fast food restaurants or shopping malls, and other defined spaces. The initial meetings focused on two broad areas, scope and technical provisions. The scoping was to define who was being served: children with disabilities, children without disabilities, parents of children with disabilities, disabled parents with able-bodied kids, and the integration of facilities for those with and without disabilities.

A team of federal mediators convened the first session in early 1996, and facilitated eight meetings of the committee in different parts of the country over the next 18 months. In July 1997, the negotiating committee completed its work, presenting draft regulations to the full Access Board. The Board transmitted the final product to the U.S. Department of Justice, and the draft has been published in the Federal Register for the required public comment period prior to promulgated.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Another, more visible, area of FMCS work under the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act and Regulatory Negotiation Act is the mediation of public lands disputes.

Within the Superior National Forest in Northeastern Minnesota is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), encompassing 1.3-million acres along the Minnesota-Ontario border. Nearby is the 200,000 acre Voyageurs National Park. Public debate has continued unabated for decades between interests who want BWCAW to be a pristine wilderness, and want the use of VNP somewhat limited, and groups of landowners, businesses and other multiple-use advocates in the area who want greater access, more areas open to motor boating and more local control over both natural areas. Years of federal legislation and court decisions had not settled the issues, and in 1996, opposing bills in Congress brought the controversy to a boil. FMCS was asked to design and facilitate a multi-party dispute resolution process which could identify the various interests and viewpoints in the disputes, and bring representatives together to develop consensus recommendations which might finally resolve the conflict.

The FMCS mediation team received over 200 contacts from individuals and organizations wishing to participate, and conducted 100 extensive interviews from among those contacts. The team recommended separate negotiating committees for BWCAW and VNP, identified the basic issues in dispute and suggested members for the committees representing every viewpoint. The mediation team then trained the committees members in Interest-Based Negotiation and consensus decision-making.

The Boundary Waters Committee, dealing with the more contentious of the two disputes, listed eighteen issues to be negotiated. In ten months of meetings, the committee reached consensus recommendations on fifteen, but could not agree on the most divisive issues topics in the dispute: restrictions on motor boating on, and motorized portages between, certain lakes. However, options to resolve those issues were generated, and won nearly unanimous support from the committee members.

U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone announced that the mediation process had resolved most of the outstanding issues and brought the factions closer to agreement on the remaining questions than they had been in decades. He incorporated the consensus recommendations and the options on the undecided issues into Senate Bill 1085, which was introduced in July 1997. Wellstone said of the mediation process..."the historic agreements that were reached by the committee will, I hope, serve as the basis for a final settlement here in Congress."

The Voyageurs National Park Committee continues to meet through September 1997.

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Last modified: February 10, 1998