A $1.1 million U.S. Department of Labor grant to a Cornell University-based group may mean a fast, inexpensive and satisfactory resolution to a range of employment disputes throughout the United States.

The outsourced mediation project is an unprecedented move for the DOL and is expected to save time and money and produce solutions more acceptable to both sides of disputes than court-litigated rulings, the high-priced alternative. It also will help the agency respond to the flood of claims arising from recent employment legislation.

The grant will explore the use of mediation to resolve employment disputes on such laws as the Family Medical Leave Act, wage and hour legislation and various whistleblower statutes. Cornell's Institute for Conflict Resolution (ICR) will administer the grant, develop a national roster of mediators and train them in pertinent federal employment laws as well as mediation processes. The group also will researc the effectiveness of mediation in resolving employment disputes.

ICR, which is led at Cornell by David Lipsky, Rocco Scanza and Ronald Seeber, is managing the ambitious mediation project on behalf of the Alliance for Education in Dispute Resolution, a national consortium of 16 universities and professional organizations that trains people in mediation and other "alternative dispute resolution" methods. Lipsky is a professor and former dean of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR); Scanza is executive director of the alliance; and Seeber is associate dean and associate professor at the ILR School. (A full list of alliance members appears at the end of this release.)

"The grant is a huge vote of confidence in the effectiveness of mediation to resolve disputes of any kind," said Scanza. If the program is successful, it may become a standard feature of the DOL and could be used similarly by other government agencies, he said.

Former U.S. Secretaries of Labor William Usery and John Dunlop helped secure the grant, which was just awarded by Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman and Solicitor of Labor Henry Solano. All four are among the supporters of alternative dispute resolution as a viable tool for resolving disagreements. In a 1994 report, Dunlop recommended that the DOL consider training its own mediators, but the task proved too demanding for the agency. Outsourcing was the logical next step, said Lipsky.

Arnold Zack, chairman of the alliance's executive committee and former president of the National Academy of Arbitrators (a member of the alliance), believes that alternative dispute resolution techniques, in general, and the mediation project, in particular, "will be better for employer-employee relations and bring more justice to more people."

Claimants will be empowered by being able to select their own mediators from the roster and by participating in mediated discussions -- something that would not happen in court, Zack said. And the national pool of trained mediators will expand to include more women and minorities as a result of the grant, he predicted.

C. Richard Barnes, director of the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service, an independent federal agency and member of the alliance that promotes conflict resolution in the public and private sectors, praised the DOL for testing mediation as a tool for resolving employment disputes through the outsourcing grant.

"I commend the work of the alliance and the wisdom of the Department of Labor's leaders in allocating research funds to provide skilled mediators to assist in cases where a third-party neutral can help achieve amicable solutions," Barnes said. "It is obvious to practitioners in the field of conflict resolution that the strongest agreements are those that parties formulate and support themselves."

In addition to those named above, key people who helped secure the grant and their organizations include: Professor Les Hough, W.J. Usery Center for the Workplace, Georgia State University; and Sara Adler and Mark Dichter, both of the American Bar Association.

The alliance already has received an initial $100,000 in grant funds from the DOL. It expects to receive two additional payments of $500,000, one this fiscal year and one the following fiscal year.

Alliance for Education in Dispute Resolution member organizations

Universities: Cornell University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Missouri; Georgia State University; Willamette University; University of Illinois; Pepperdine University; Ohio State University; University of California at Los Angeles.

Professional Organizations: American Bar Association, Section of Labor and Employment Law; National Bar Association; National Academy of Arbitrators; Industrial Relations Research Association; Society of Federal Labor Relations Professionals; Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution.