Kenneth E. Moffett Deputy Director Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Kenneth E. Moffett was appointed Deputy Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service on June 2, 1977. He was appointed Director of Mediation Services of FMCS in 1972, and in this position Moffett directed the mediation of labor relations disputes in the private, public and federal sectors. In 1969, former director J. Curtis Counts designated Moffett as his Special Assistant. During this period, Father Leo C. Brown, S.J., Chairman of the Atomic Energy Labor-Management. Relations Panel, named Moffett executive secretary of the panel and he continues to serve in this capacity. He was appointed a trouble-shooter for the Service in 1967, mediating disputes of national significance out of the Washington, D.C. national office. Commissioned a mediator with FMCS in 1961, Moffett served in Washington, D.C., for a year and in Cleveland, Ohio, for five years. From 1957 to 1961, he served as an International Representative for District 50, United Mine Workers of America. Moffett was born on September 11, 1931, in Lykens, Pennsylvania. He served in the U. S. Navy. Following this service, he attended the University of Maryland, and graduated in 1958. He is a member of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, and held the office of president for the 1975-1976 term. July 1977 Statement by Wayne L. Horvitz, Director Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service before the Labor, Health, Education, and Welfare Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: It is my pleasure to present to you the Fiscal Year 1979 appropriation for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Let me begin by outlining for you what levels of activity we anticipate for the fiscal year in our major pro gram areas: 1. We expect our dispute case assignments, in both the private and public sectors, to increase significantly from FY 1977 levels--which were at the highest point in the Service's history. Our private sector joint meeting cases closed, those in which mediators actively participate, will rise to 10,700 from 9,707 in FY 1977, and our public sector case closings will rise to 1,000 in FY 1979 from 821 in FY 1977. 2 2. 3. 4. Our total technical assistance caseload will Demands for arbitration services will continue our mediators and our support staff to serve the interests of the parties. It has been a busy first year for me. Almost my first order of business was to take an active role in the contract dispute between the East and Gulf Coast Longshoremen and their employers. Although there was a two-month strike growing out of the dispute, the stoppage was concluded without the resort to the traditional script for these dock strikes, which called for invocation of the Taft-Hartley Law's 80-day cooling off period, followed by a strike of even longer duration. 3 From there, the Service went immediately into coal industry negotiations and a strike which has been on since December 6. We are still actively involved in assisting the parties in their attempts to reach agreement. Once that is behind us, however, I don't expect that we will remain idle. Today's economic and business climate is putting the collective bargaining process to some severe tests. A number of competitive pressures are affecting a broad range of industries. High among these pressures is the impact of foreign imports on the American market. At the same time, inflation is pushing up employers' operating costs, and consumers are resisting companies' attempts to pass along higher prices their increased wage and materials costs. In this conflict situation, employers are taking a tougher bargaining stance. On the union side, the continuing rise of inflation and high unemployment is having the effect of concentrating union bargaining programs on improved wage protections and job security. We expect another development to have an impact on the bargaining process also. In the past few months, there has been a noticeable hardening of relations between labor and management. 25-260 (Pt. 7) O 7841 4 There are many factors contributing to this. The competitive pressures I have mentioned is one. Management now perceives unions as being weaker than in the past, because they are declining numerically in the private sector of the economy; their membership has dropped to just over 20 percent of the work force. Seeing this, management to some degree is ready to test out the bargaining relationship to see what it will bear. There is the feeling among many employers that for many years they have been giving away far more at the bargaining table than they should, and that perhaps this is a good time to get it back. In this climate, we expect our disputes caseload in both the private and public sectors to increase significantly in both FY 1978 and 1979. Among the most demanding and time consuming of the Each year Service's cases are those involving first contracts. the Service is involved in about 2,000 of these. Because of the parties' inexperience in the techniques of collective bargaining, negotiations often are lengthy and likely to degenerate into strikes. The mediators must often act as an educator in these negotiations. FMCS estimates that the increase in organization by unions in the South and Southwest sections of the nation, and in the growing health care industry, will mean an increase in first contract negotiation situations. |