ILR Panel Explores Labor Mediation Challenges and Solutions

The U.S. labor mediation system remains vital but is experiencing growing strain from social and political changes. Challenges faced by today’s labor mediators include disputes over workplace control, increasingly fragmented coalitions, and declining trust. Related concerns are the availability of trusted mediators who understand labor dynamics and public funding for mediation services.

These challenges were the focus of a Cornell Keynotes panel discussion, “Labor Peace at Risk: Why Mediators Matter in Polarized Times,” on May 12. 

Moderated by Alex Colvin, Ph.D. ’99, ILR’s Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and Martin F. Scheinman ’75, MS ’76, Professor of Conflict Resolution, the panel included four ILR experts: Ariel Avgar, the David M. Cohen Professor of Labor Relations, Law, and History; Javier Ramirez, executive manager of the National Conflict Resolution Service in the Scheinman Institute; and Dionne Pohler, the David and Alexandra Lipsky Professor in Dispute Resolution and Labor Relations. 

“What we’re seeing is not some large national strike wave; it’s actually more fragmented, more targeted, more complex than that,” Colvin said. “The center of gravity of labor relations has shifted beyond just the bargaining table to involve courts, agencies, public pressure.” 

Ramirez added that over the past five years, bargaining has increasingly moved beyond the classic economic issues of wages and benefits into questions of workplace control, with safety, staffing, scheduling, flexibility and other employment conditions taking on greater importance. 

Ramirez also noted that another area of contention is “a fight over the control of the negotiation table,” with more fragmentation within unions and management. 

The Role of Mediation

Avgar provided a brief overview of mediation, explaining that a mediator has no authority to impose an outcome but instead helps the parties to “communicate more effectively, to clarify interests and to move through conflict in a structured way.” 

According to Avgar, mediation not only creates more durable and creative agreements, but it also tends to “strengthen the parties’ own muscle to resolve future conflicts.”

“Mediation has become an important and stabilizing feature of the labor relations system in the United States that prevents impasses in commerce and preserves relationships,” Avgar said.

Trust Under Pressure

The panelists repeatedly mentioned a recent decline in trust at the negotiating table. 

Ramirez explained that declining trust is pushing more labor conflict out of the bargaining room and into the public arena, where boycotts, shareholder pressure and reputational campaigns can harden positions even further.

Avgar said, “Workers and unions are articulating new demands around work-family balance, flexibility, voice, equity, and job security. … This has resulted in … a more adversarial and polarized labor relations environment.”

Pohler pointed out that social media campaigns and social amplification are playing an important role. “Those things can increase hot emotions, like anger … [this] can lead to a decline in trust between the parties at the table, or even within the bargaining committees.”

Capacity Concerns

The panelists also raised concerns about the availability of skilled labor mediators. 

According to Ramirez, under the current federal administration, only about 60 mediators work for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), down from roughly 140 in early 2025. States and private entities are trying to pick up the slack, but delays in locating mediators and costs are leading to mediators joining negotiations later in the process.

“What we’re trying to do with Scheinman and the AAA [American Arbitration Association] is to centralize some of the private requests, to be a point where folks should go to get these services; but that shift from free to fee, folks are struggling with that,” said Ramirez.

The panelists emphasized that labor mediation requires extensive training and hands-on experience, and it can be difficult to begin a mediation career without the right connections. 

Strengthening the System

The panelists had many ideas for strengthening the overall U.S. labor mediation system, including:

• Increasing communication and collaboration among federal, state, and private mediation systems.
• Reinforcing the idea that mediation is the normal and legitimate way to manage conflict.
• Encouraging an early start to mediation, before grievances pile up and trust erodes.
• Looking to other countries, such as Canada, for ideas.
• Ensuring that public funding for mediation is available. 
• Expanding the system’s capacity to assist with nonunion labor disputes.
• Supporting more research on labor mediation to increase our understanding of it and improve effectiveness.
• Increasing education, training and support for labor mediators, including through programs already offered by ILR’s Scheinman Institute.

The panelists agreed that today’s need for mediation capacity is unlikely to diminish.

Pohler underscored the need to adapt, saying, “I don’t think this is a temporary spike in conflict. I think it’s a fundamental structural shift. … Conflict doesn’t disappear. It changes forms, but we’re going to have to continue to deal with it going forward. We have to put capacity in the systems to do that.”