Third Party Intervention

Описание: For the most part, unions and employers are on their own when it comes to bargaining. The assistance of outside parties can be helpful in negotiations but usually is not legally required. Mediators are neutral third parties who, by entering the negotiations and exerting control over the bargaining process, help unions and employers reach their own negotiated settlements.

Mediators can only facilitate negotiations; they have no authority to impose agreement or any particular terms on the negotiating parties. The NLRA requires that the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) be notified within thirty days after bargaining is requested if an agreement has not been reached in the negotiations. The agency is charged with promptly communicating with the parties and using mediation to produce agreements and avoid strikes. However, if the negotiating parties do not want to settle, there is little that a mediator can do.

Mediators have more strength under the Railway Labor Act. Only when the National Mediation Board concludes that further negotiations would be fruitless are the parties allowed to pursue a strike or other approaches. Airline industry negotiations overseen by the NMB sometimes take several years to conclude. Fact-finding procedures that delay strikes are used in rare circumstances under the NLRA and somewhat more frequently under the RLA. Only rarely does the law require that negotiating parties turn over unresolved issues for resolution by an arbitrator.