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What sort of a career lends its expertise to
professional baseball players, airplane manufacturers and supermarket
employees? Professional mediation, of course. This Thursday, Fletcher played
host to Peter Hurtgen, Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service (FMCS), who discussed these and other initiatives in conflict
resolution, bringing together the theoretical and the practical.
Dean Lisa Lynch introduced Director Hurtgen, who was
nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in August
2002. After decades of work in national law firms, Hurtgen moved into the
public sector, serving first as a member, then as Chairman, of the National
Labor Relations Board. Although FMCS has been charged with mediating
individual disputes within the government since 1995, Hurtgen acknowledged
that FMCS is not well-known outside of the labor management world, noting
that his wife poked fun at the prestigious appointment, asking what was next
in his “meteoric career.”
The FMCS, said Hurtgen, gets involved in mediating between labor and
management in a variety of situations, with the Director called in when the
economic stakes are high. If every day the Pacific coast dock workers and
the employers could not negotiate a settlement totalled $1 Billion in lost
sales, then the economic implications were obvious. But what about an
impending players’ strike in Major League Baseball? As Hurtgen’s first
potential project as Director, he felt that there was sufficient morale at
stake to necessitate the agency’s involvement. Unfortunately, as Hurtgen was
to discover time and again, without the authority to require both sides to
come to the table, his ability to help in the situation was limited.
 President
Bush personally requested Hurtgen’s and FMCS’s assistance with the West
Coast dock workers’ strike, which he found already populated with heated
emotions and decades of distrust. “The idea of the Federal Government coming
in to talk with them was viewed as a sign of weakness,” Hurtgen noted of the
workers’ union, adding that he was perceived as one of many representatives
of a ‘heavy-handed’ administration.
After both sides eventually agreed to the mediation, Hurtgen persevered, and
ultimately learned valuable lessons from the experience, which he cited as
representative of most cases. First, the hardest aspect of mediation is to
get both parties simply to be willing to accept FMCS’s help. Hurtgen
acknowledged that one side frequently views itself as having a distinct
advantage or disadvantage over the other party, and therefore resists
mediation, believing it will remove this upper hand. FMCS, however, enters
each mediation as an impartial party, helping to reach agreements and not to
make value judgments.
In addition to these situations with an imbalance of power, Hurtgen referred
to other externalities – such as technology, healthcare or open economic
borders – that can drive the bargaining. Recounting his most recent work
with Eastern European governments, Hurtgen discussed their development of
relevant and appropriate systems of social dialogue (the European analogue
to collective bargaining.)
At this point, Professor Jeswald Salacuse responded to this less stylized,
legal European negotiation. For many international mediations, getting a
clearly defined picture of the parties at the table is a highly challenging
part of the process, as is employing a thoughtful cultural understanding of
the situation. Professor Adil Najam also confirmed the relevance of
mediation at the international level, particularly around labor issues.
For the students, faculty and staff members in attendance at the talk, some
conceded that this was their first example of real-life practical
mediations. Enrapt, Professor Peter Uvin even joked that Hurtgen was such a
skillful negotiator, he had forgotten his questions.
Hurtgen’s talk heralded the start of ongoing institutional cooperation
between Fletcher and FMCS, with the help of FMCS’s representative at
Fletcher, PhD candidate Andrea Strimling. The event was co-sponsored by a
wide array of Fletcher associations, including the Office of the Executive
Associate Dean, the Office of the Academic Dean, and the International
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program. |
