The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) has long been a partner with PERC in labor relations in Washington state. The FMCS and PERC have jointly sponsored the NW Chapter LERA Collective Bargaining and Arbitration Conference for many years. We have also worked with FMCS as members of the Association of Labor Relations Agencies, the association of impartial government agencies in the United States and Canada responsible for administering labor-management relations laws and services.
 
PERC has been following closely the developments at FMCS. To comply with recent executive orders, FMCS has placed the vast majority of its employees on administrative leave with the intent of laying them off. It is our understanding that FMCS will be left with 15 staff, including non-mediator personnel.

First and foremost, our thoughts are with the affected employees and their families. They are all dedicated public servants committed to helping labor and management build better relationships and navigate ways to solve disputes. Like many public agencies, FMCS has delivered outsized results in comparison to the cost of the agency. Since the actions dismantling this resource were taken, PERC has received inquiries about whether it can provide services to private-sector parties.

Since its inception, PERC has had statutory authority to provide services to private-sector parties when both parties consent. In its history PERC has sporadically received requests from private-sector parties. Among the services PERC can provide are access to its panel of private arbitrators, arbitrations conducted by PERC staff, grievance mediation, contract mediation, training, and representation elections.
 
PERC recognizes that private-sector parties have lost a valuable resource to help them address labor relations issues and remains open to doing what it can to fill that void. PERC will provide lists of arbitrators from our Dispute Resolution Panel upon request. All other requests for services will be considered by me on an ad hoc basis. In considering any requests from private-sector parties, I will weigh PERC’s operational capacity and ensure that granting the request will not be at the expense of our public-sector clientele. For information on how to file a case with PERC, click here.
 
If parties have additional questions, I am happy to discuss.