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Preventive Mediation
To help improve ongoing relationships and keep the lines of
communication open between employers and unions, the Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) offers a comprehensive
Preventive Mediation Program, designed to help unions and
employers build and maintain constructive working relationships.
All Preventive Mediation services are delivered jointly to unions and
employers by mediators with extensive experience in both traditional
and alternative approaches to labour relations. These services can
be customized to meet the specific needs of a particular workplace
and no fee is charged for the service.
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The Preventive Mediation services include:
Interest-Based Negotiation Workshop
 The interest-based negotiation workshop provides employers and
unions with an opportunity for joint training and informal discussions
about the process of negotiation.
 In this workshop, participants have an opportunity to experiment with
the interest-based approach to collective bargaining and consider the
effect the negotiation process can have on bargaining outcomes.
 Training involves a combination of presentations, exercises,
negotiation simulations and group discussion in the context of the
labour-management relationship.
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Negotiations Practices Workshop
 The negotiation practices workshop provides a forum
where unions and employers can discuss the collective
bargaining process and consider whether improvements
could be made to their negotiating styles.
 The workshop stresses the importance of thorough
preparation, open sharing of information and joint
discussion of both process and substantive issues.
 Workshop activities include presentation, exercises and
group discussion.
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Committee Effectiveness Workshop
 Joint committees of labour and management representatives can
function as the basic building blocks of a healthy labour-management
relationship.
 These committees provide both parties with a forum in which to
discuss and resolve workplace issues during the term of a collective
agreement.
 This workshop is designed to help establish joint committees or assist
in the revitalization of an existing committee by providing training in
skills such as planning and running effective meetings, preparing
agendas and minutes, group problem-solving, consensus decisionmaking and interpersonal communication.
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Problem-Solving Workshop
 This workshop is designed for parties who wish to explore
alternative ways of working together on a daily basis.
 The workshop presents a problem-solving process which
may help parties to address workplace issues in a more
systematic and less adversarial manner.
 Skills obtained in this workshop can be applied to a wide
range of workplace interactions.
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Supervisor-Steward Joint Training
 This workshop is designed to help improve the day-to-day
interaction between union representatives and first-line
supervisors.
 The focus of the workshop is on collective agreement
administration and grievance handling.
 Exercises provide an opportunity to improve
communication channels while considering the rights,
responsibilities and restrictions of each party under the
collective agreement.
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Managing Organizational Change
 Organizational changes, including mergers, acquisitions
and reorganizations often have a major impact on
individuals as well as organizations and can, if not handled
well, strain the labour relationship between the union and
the employer.
 The FMCS offers assistance to help the parties discuss,
prepare for and manage the labour relations
consequences of organizational change.
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Facilitation
 The FMCS can provide the services of an experienced
mediator to act as a facilitator for joint processes.
 Whether it is a different approach to collective bargaining
or the resolution of a major workplace issue, some joint
initiatives can prove more successful if the process is
guided by a neutral facilitator.
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Relationship by Objectives Program
 The relationship by objectives (RBO) program enables employers and
unions to redesign a relationship which may have become ineffective
or dysfunctional.
 During this program, key union and employer representatives meet for
an intensive session of up to three days.
 Under the guidance of a team of mediators, they try to reach
agreement about the problems in their working relationship and to
identify a variety of solutions.
 The goal is to develop a clear, written action plan for improving the
relationship, including a set of joint objectives, activities, and assigned
responsibility for specific tasks.
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Grievance Workshop
 The grievance workshop offers labour and management
an opportunity to consider the effectiveness of their
grievance administration process.
 Through presentation, exercises and discussions, parties
can explore ideas for improving their ability to resolve
workplace issues in a timely and effective manner.
 Facilitation can also be provided if parties wish to jointly
undertake a remodelling of their grievance procedure.
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Grievance Mediation
 Grievance mediation offers labour and management an
informal and low-cost alternative to arbitration.
 It provides parties with an opportunity to meet and attempt
to resolve grievances and their underlying issues with the
assistance of an experienced and neutral FMCS mediator.
 If the grievance is not resolved during mediation, the
parties retain their right to proceed to arbitration.
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