A MODERN DAY MEDIATOR ROLE MODEL

My last posting described two historical mediators in the public sector. Recent events have brought another mediator to our attention.

The event was the largest strike of 2022 and the largest in U.S. higher education history. Graduate student teaching assistants unions began in the late 1960s at public universities. The overriding issue is whether graduate assistants are primarily students whose teaching and research is part of the academic training or whether they are employees with the right to form unions and bargain collectively.

Late last year 48,000 United Auto Workers unionized graduate student employees at the University of California 10 campuses went out on strike. With an average annual base salary of $24,000 the students were asking for $54,000 plus enhanced benefits including child care subsidies, longer family leave, free public transit, greater job security, and enhanced health care for dependents.

University officials called for mediation but the unions responded with a call for round-the-clock bargaining rather than mediation. University negotiators announced that they would make no new proposals in negotiations unless mediation was agreed to. Later the UC President and union officials agreed to invite Sacramento mayor and former state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg to help to mediate their agreement.

Steinberg met with both sides, listened carefully, and then shuttled offers and counteroffers between the two sides in Sacramento City Hall. In an interview Steinberg did not deny reports that he was ready to walk out without an agreement. He said in the interview, “You get to a point where the parties dig in a little harder, and you have to say, ‘I’m now going to insist that you consider these options—this is it.” Steinberg brought the parties to agreement ending the 40-day walkout.

Mediators know these tools as deadline pressure and WATNA – Worse Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, that is, what are the consequences of not settling.