Function of the Mediator in Collective Bargaining

The question of how mediation actually works to assist collective bargaining and settle labor disputes has long resisted the best efforts of students of labor relations to find a satisfactory answer. Mainly, this is because mediation, unlike most other methods of dispute settlement, leaves no documentary or other traces that can be analyzed to disclose the processes involved; even the parties to a dispute which has been settled through mediation are often not conscious of the factors that influenced agreement. Left with the conclusion that mediation is analytically inseparable from the mediator, the textbook author, for example, generally describes those personal and professional qualifications that seem to identify the successful practitioners of this method of dispute settlement. This article is an exception to the usual approach to understanding mediation by a man who enjoyed an exceptionally successful and useful career as a mediator and who not only understood, but could also articulate, what he was doing. In a brief but penetrating distillation of his own experience, Arthur S. Meyer reveals the method which he employed in mediating labor disputes during the years in which he selflessly devoted himself to this work. Though necessarily personal, his account brings us much closer to the general principles involved in the conduct of mediation. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)