How Interest-based, Grievance Mediation Performs Over the Long Term - Chapter 3 - AAA Handbook on Labor Arbitration & ADR, 3rd Edition

Author(s):

Stephen B. Goldberg

Page Count:

12 pages

Published:

May, 2016

Author Detail:

Stephen B. Goldberg is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. He is a co-author (with William L. Ury and Professor Jeanne M. Brett) of Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict (Jossey-Bass, 1988; Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 1993). He would like to acknowledge Professor Brett’s contribution to this chapter. She assisted and provided counsel in every phase of its development. She designed the interview schedule, advised on and conducted the data analysis, and edited many drafts. Professor Goldberg would also like to thank Melissa Cryder, who conducted the interviews and collected the data on which this chapter is based.

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Description:

Originally from: AAA Handbook on Labor Arbitration and ADR - Third Edition

CHAPTER 3
HOW INTEREST-BASED, GRIEVANCE MEDIATION PERFORMS OVER THE LONG TERM

Stephen B. Goldberg

I. Introduction

In 1980, four districts of the United Mine Workers of America and four coal companies in those districts agreed to participate in a grievance mediation experiment. Since then, unions and employers in other industries have used grievance mediation. It makes sense that having repeated experiences with grievance mediation could have long-term effects on the labor-management relationship. But what are they? Has grievance mediation enhanced the ability of unions and employers to resolve grievances on their own, without the need of a mediator? Has it improved the labor-management relationship overall? Why has grievance mediation survived in some settings and perished in others? To answer these questions, we analyzed empirical data collected over the past 35 years, and interviewed both union and management representatives to obtain their views. The results of this study, which are set forth below, justify cautious optimism about the capacity of grievance mediation to achieve long-term benefits for labor and management.

The essence of grievance mediation, as used today, is similar to the procedure used in the 1980 experiment in which four coal companies and four districts of the United Mine Workers Union agreed to mediate employee grievances. In grievance mediation, the mediator meets both jointly and separately with the parties in order to determine, and then help the parties overcome, barriers to settlement. Among the techniques available to the grievance mediator is to predict the likely outcome if the grievance is not settled in mediation. However, mediators who participated in the coal industry experiment were discouraged from using this technique. Instead, they were encouraged to use primarily the interest-based approach to dispute resolution described in Ury, Brett, and Goldberg, Getting Disputes Resolved.