Employee Rights, Discipline, and Collective Bargaining

a. Explain the following third-party interventions: mediation, fact-finder, and binding arbitration. Provide hypothetical examples of each.

b. Compare four (4) tactics that a union might use to break an impasse. Do not discuss the three (3) interventions discussed in “a” above.

Employee Rights, Discipline, and Collective Bargaining

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Employee Rights, Discipline, and Collective Bargaining

1. Explain the following third-party interventions: mediation, fact-finder, and binding arbitration. Provide hypothetical examples of each.

Mediation is one of the most common methods that are used to resolve conflict with the help of a third-party. It involves an informal and non-aggressive discussion that aims to get to the bottom of conflict and resolve it with the help of a third-party, known as a mediator (Goltsman et al., 2009). The mediator listens to both sides of the disagreement in an informal or casual setting. Mediation will involve the mediator sitting with the parties to a dispute and asking each party to listen to the other party’s side of the story. The mediator ensures that the parties focus on the root cause of the conflict and not the arguments or superficial details. A husband and wife who are fighting may consult a third-party who may be a marriage counselor to be their mediator in the resolution of their conflict.

Fact-finder is a third-party intervention that involves the examination of a situation or dispute and making recommendations to the parties involved in the dispute or the situation (Keethaponcalan, 2017). It helps parties understand the situation better or make sense in the circumstances that they find themselves in. A neutral professional is consulted to examine a conflict situation and “find facts”, after which they make recommendations on how to go about the situation. This is a good method, especially where parties involved do not trust each other or where emotions can prevent parties from being objective. The recommendations made by the fact-finder are not binding. Parties may use them or choose not to.

Binding arbitration is a third-party conflict resolution method that involves an independent outsider, an arbitrator, making the decision, or settling on the best outcome. The decision of the arbitrator is legally or contractually binding to all the parties involved (Goltsman et al., 2009). Each party is fully aware that it has to abide by the decision of the arbitrator even if they may not agree with it. This method is mostly used when there is a stalemate between parties over a point of law, facts, or a contractual detail. It is also used in commercial and protracted conflicts when parties disagree since it does not require the co-operation of the parties in conflict.

1. Compare four (4) tactics that a union might use to break an impasse. Do not discuss the three (3) interventions discussed in “a” above.

To break an impasse, a union may use the following tactics:

1. Looking for new creative ways of value addition by investigating the available options that parties have rejected. New information and insights learned during negotiation can be used to develop new and creative options that were not apparent earlier.
2. Focusing on one’s interests while helping the other party to concentrate on their interests. Focusing on interests and avoiding getting distracted from them will ensure that negotiations remain on track.
3. Offering to grant a small concession that is contingent on the other party’s offering a concession too (Keethaponcalan, 2017). This will make it easier for the parties to engage in constructive talks rather than being unwelcoming to each other.
4. Focusing on the easy and small issues on the negotiation agenda first to build momentum that can carry the discussions forward to make it easier to agree on large issues. This is a good way since starting with the large issues makes it difficult for parties to listen to each other and agree.

References

Goltsman, M., Hörner, J., Pavlov, G., & Squintani, F. (2009). Mediation, arbitration and negotiation. Journal of Economic Theory, 144(4), 1397-1420.

Keethaponcalan, S. I. (2017). Conflict resolution: An introduction to third party intervention. Lexington Books.