The Director fulfills the obligation to assist in the resolution of disputes by:
- reviewing Declarations of Impasse between public employers and the unions representing their employees;
- determining if impasse exists in the negotiations;
- discerning the appropriate impasse resolution procedure applicable to the negotiations:
- for units of employees in educational institutions, the procedure calls for mediation, fact-finding and continued negotiations until the parties reach agreement;
- for police, fire fighters, some transit, and certain other units, mediation is followed by interest arbitration;
- all other public employee units are provided with mediation and fact-finding, which may be succeeded by a legislative determination of employment terms, if no agreement is reached;
- in some instances, after mediation and fact-finding have been unsuccessful, the Director may determine that additional assistance should be provided to the parties, in which case a conciliator is assigned.
- choosing between staff and per diem panel neutrals when making mediator, fact finder and conciliator assignments;
- ensuring that a panel of qualified labor relations neutrals is available to provide mediation, factfinding, conciliation and interest arbitration services on a per diem basis.