Washington, DC–The US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is working with one of the largest public sector agencies of the District of Columbia government, the Department of Human Services (DHS), on a pilot project intended to demonstrate how organizations can develop their own systems for resolving potentially disruptive disputes in unionized workplaces.

The Department of Human Services for the District of Columbia has approximately 1, 800 employees.  It administers social service programs and services that primarily benefit low-income District of Columbia residents, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid/Healthy Families, food stamps, family services, early childhood development, rehabilitation services, mental retardation and developmental disability services, and youth services.  AFSCME, AFGE, and Fraternal Order of Police locals are among the unions that represent the Department’s employees.

DHS and the AFSCME, AFGE, and Fraternal Order of Police locals, with FMCS’s facilitation, will collaborate to design a system that resolves all kinds of workplace disputes falling outside of their traditional collective bargaining agreements.

In the spring 2004, FMCS unveiled an innovative process for addressing such dispute, known as Dynamic Adaptive Dispute Systems, or the acronym DyADS.  It is a result of an FMCS-sponsored 18-month review that included a national team of dispute system design experts from academia and the practitioner community.

The team was led by FMCS General Counsel Arthur Pearlstein in cooperation with the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University.  Pearlstein and FMCS Commissioner Denise McKenney will be working directly with the Department of Human Services, assisting unions and management in developing a dispute resolution system.  In a statement, the Department announced, “We are extremely pleased that the FMCS is working with us on this project, and we look forward to this new, exciting and collaborative relationship.  We have great hope that it will improve our productivity and create a successful and morale-boosting work environment.”

This is the second piloted DyADS project, and the first one in the public sector.  The first private sector pilot is underway at a large hospital center in Akron, Ohio.

“A DyADS process requires a collaborative effort on the part of both organized labor and management within an organization, “explained FMCS’s Arthur Pearlstein.  “The parties should be commended for their willingness to participate in this process that we hope will build a system that is useful and that the parties can be proud of,” said Pearlstein.

In announcing the DyADS initiative a few months ago, FMCS Director, Peter J. Hurtgen said, “DyADS is a centerpiece of our campaign to reduce workplace conflict and its debilitating effect on the nation’s economy.”

Pearlstein and McKenney will personally facilitate the meetings in developing DyADS at the District’s DHS.  “Participants from the unions and management will together develop their own system that is specifically tailored to the kinds of conflicts in their workplace,” said Pearlstein.

“We know FMCS is an excellent resource for labor and management,” said DHS Director Yvonne Gilchrist, “and they are uniquely qualified to encourage and support this kind of process. We are delighted to be the first public sector organization to be chosen as a pilot program.”

For more information on the DyADS process and how to participate, log on to FMCS or send an email.