Originally Posted by sailingfun

I posted this earlier. I doubt the NMB will put more than a token effort into our mediation for at least the next year.

With only a dozen mediators to work on hundreds of rail and airline employee groups, the NMB places a high premium on only assigning mediators to a frequent bargaining schedule when it believes the union and management are close to what it calls the “zone of reasonableness” – in plain terms, when the two sides have moved away from their opening positions, have finished bargaining on the majority of their contract and are closer to compromise on the remaining items. Usually a mediator will not be assigned until the parties have only a few open items left to bargain; of course, these are often also the most critical, time-intensive contract sections like pay, benefits and scope.