Governor-elect John Kasich, in one of his first speeches following the election, singled out as problematic Ohio’s approach to the resolution of collective bargaining disputes for public sector employers and employees. Ohio, through its State Employment Relations Board (SERB), attempts to mediate collective bargaining impasses. If negotiations and mediation fail, a fact-finder is appointed. The fact-finder holds a fact-finding conference and then issues a detailed and reasoned report with recommendations as to how he or she believes the parties should resolve the impasse. Neither party has to accept this report, and many do not. If impasse continues, the parties ultimately have to submit to conciliation. A conciliator can only choose one of the proposals the parties present (classic high/low arbitration). The conciliator cannot impose his or her own solution.
Governor-elect Kasich stated that he does not think outsiders should be able to come in and impose resolutions on public sector employers and employees. I have offered to help the new administration to think through this issue carefully. I have not been taken up on this offer yet. In my opinion, the current process works very well. The parties have many opportunities to settle and the “outsider’s” opinions often help the parties see the issue in a different light (which may help them settle). I am not sure that there is an alternative available that would prove more efficient or helpful than the current construct.
Reading this post got me thinking about something else I just read. I was reading about Brown and Root, an nonunion company with 25-30,000 employees. Brown was spending too much money on legal fees so it was one of the first US companies to implement an in house dispute resolution program. If a dispute arises, employees submit to compulsory arbitration without an attorney. There are a number of procedural safeguards in place to assure that this process is fair, including legal representation reimbursement. Upwards of 1,500 claims were submitted to this program in its early years and around 2/3 of those claims were solved by the program. Overall, Brown saved on legal fees and the number of claims filed went down. (See Richard Bales, Compulsory Arbitration: The Grand Experiment in Employment 102-113 (1997)) (A very interesting article that explains this program more in depth.)
After reading about this program, I couldn’t help but wonder why more large (and even small) employers would not choose to implement a program similar to this. It saves money for both employer and employee, it improves company morale, and it almost seems too good to be true. When looking at Brown and Root’s example, I couldn’t help but wonder how this could be implemented into the public sector of employment. It seems that it could be ideal for the Governor-elect in that it does not really include “outsiders” and the problem is mostly solved within the company. I don’t have any answers, but it definitely is food for thought…