
Contents
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USPS Stakeholders and Context USPS Stakeholders and Context
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Goals: Addressing a Massive Stream of Disputes Goals: Addressing a Massive Stream of Disputes
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Designs, Structure, and Resources Designs, Structure, and Resources
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Success and Accountability: Evaluating the Final National DSD of REDRESS© Success and Accountability: Evaluating the Final National DSD of REDRESS©
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Evaluating Systemic Impact on the USPS as an Organization Evaluating Systemic Impact on the USPS as an Organization
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Lessons Learned about Conflict Management and Organizational Justice Lessons Learned about Conflict Management and Organizational Justice
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Conclusion Conclusion
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References References
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13 Using Mediation to Manage Conflict at the United States Postal Service
Get accessLisa Blomgren Amsler (formerly Lisa Blomgren Bingham) is the Keller-Runden Professor of Public Service at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Bloomington. She was Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas from 2010 to 2012. She has co-edited three books and authored over seventy articles, monographs, and book chapters on dispute resolution and collaborative governance. Bingham received several national awards, including the Rubin Theory-to-Practice Award from the International Association for Conflict Management and Harvard Program on Negotiation for research that makes a significant impact on practice in 2006 for her research on the U.S. Postal Service employment mediation program REDRESS©. She is Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Her current research examines dispute systems design and the legal infrastructure for collaboration, dispute resolution, and public participation in governance. She is currently working on a book entitled Dispute System Design: Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict with Janet Martinez and Stephanie Smith (Stanford University Press, forthcoming).
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Published:02 June 2014
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Abstract
The United States Postal Service (USPS) REDRESS© program (Resolve Employment Disputes Reach Equitable Solutions Swiftly) shows how mediation can help manage workplace conflict in a large, unionized organization. One of the world’s largest employment mediation programs, it applied only to complaints of discrimination filed in USPS Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) office. The dispute system design of this national conflict management program was unique in its use of transformative mediation conducted on the job. A twelve-year research collaboration between the USPS and Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs provided a comprehensive quantitative evaluation of an employment mediation program’s organizational impact. Transformative mediation focused on empowering disputants and fostering recognition of their interests. Using procedural justice theory to guide research design, studies found employees and supervisors were equally satisfied or highly satisfied with the process of mediation and mediators, and that the majority of both were satisfied with the outcomes. Outside neutral mediators were more effective than inside mediators who were USPS employees. Most employees and supervisors reported listening to each other in mediation, and close to one-third reported apologies. A multivariate national analysis reported a drop in formal adjudicated EEO complaints of over 25% that correlated with implementation of the program. Studies showed that interactional justice between employees and supervisors made important contributions to perceptions of organizational justice in the program.
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