Complex Dispute

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Sometimes workplace conferencing is confused with mediation or other conflict resolution strategies, but conferencing is a deliberately emotional strategy. The script, with its open-ended questions, repeatedly asks participants how they were affected. Although we perceive ourselves as creatures of reason, our feelings are the key to resolution of conflict.

Harry had always been in conflict with his co-workers. He wanted to return to his job in a heavy industrial plant after a long disability leave, but found the company unwilling to have him back. The union supported Harry, but his immediate co-workers, who were also union members, supported the company's position. The complex dispute had dragged on more than a year when the company and the union agreed to allow a workplace conference facilitator to try to break the impasse. Without a singular incident or clear admission of wrongdoing, the case was not one that would typically be handled as a workplace conference, but the conference facilitator was satisfied that Harry was willing to admit that he could be nasty and argumentative. He convened the conference on that basis.

The conference was tumultuous. The workers, union and company representatives did not respectfully wait for each person to finish speaking. They interrupted and shouted. The facilitator kept the conference within boundaries, but they were broader boundaries than usual.

Harry admitted that he could be an "S.O.B." Some of the co-workers reminded him of fights he had provoked. Other co-workers were willing to admit acts of revenge, like nailing Harry's boots to the floor of the locker room. But after an hour of loud argument the issue of what to do about Harry was still not resolved. Among Harry's supporters at the conference was his sister. When the facilitator asked how she was affected by Harry's negative behavior, she acknowledged Harry could be a difficult person. But then she proceeded to tell the entire group the story of their childhood, of their violent, drunken father and his rampages, of Harry's courage in protecting his siblings, of the night her father broke a chair over Harry's back when he defended the family against his violence. There wasn't a dry eye at the conference. A whole new perception of Harry emerged and a new understanding of why he was such a difficult person.

Harry himself was so choked with emotion that the facilitator adjourned the conference. He and his sister went out for a breath of air. By the time they returned, the company and the union had reached an agreement. Although Harry would not return to work, the company made a cash settlement in the form of a trust fund which would pay him a regular stipend in addition to his existing pension benefits.

Everyone agreed that this was an equitable way to resolve the dispute. After more than a year of wrangling between company and union representatives and their respective attorneys, the free flow of human emotion washed away the two parties' differences and a settlement was achieved. Human beings are creatures of emotion.

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