Integrating Unions in Integrated Conflict Management Systems

• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21143
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Todd Dickey

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© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21143

Integrating Unions in Integrated Con ict

Management Systems

Todd Dickey

Can integrated confl ict management systems (ICMSs) be fully and

successfully integrated in unionized workplaces?  is article proposes

best-practice guidelines based on new fi eld research. It argues that inte-

gration is possible and benefi cial for unions and organizations, but that

certain considerations must be addressed to ensure that ICMSs comple-

ment and support unions’ roles in the workplace rather than act as

substitutes. When ICMSs are introduced and maintained collabora-

tively in a way that engages unions as key co-owners of such systems, the

article suggests they can ultimately be made more eff ective and resilient

than when implemented in nonunion settings.

The fi eld of workplace confl ict management systems design has evolved

almost solely in the nonunion context.  e initial ideas for Getting Dis-

putes Resolved, Ury, Brett, and Goldberg’s (1988) book that introduced the

term dispute systems design into the confl ict resolution lexicon, came from

research in the heavily unionized coal mining sector, but most of the subse-

quent work in the subfi eld of systems design has not engaged with unions

or unionized workplaces (Bendersky 2007; Costantino and Merchant

1996; Katz and Flynn 2013; Rahim 2011). In 1996 Costantino and Mer-

chant proposed the concept and term confl ict management systems (CMSs),

launching a stream of innovation and implementation in the fi eld—all in

the nonunion sector. Subsequently, Gosline et al. (2001) introduced the

integrated confl ict management system (ICMS) model, which did not even

discuss how the model would function in a unionized environment. Since

then, the ICMS model has become the gold standard and most compre-

hensive design in the fi eld, but it too has been implemented primarily in

nonunion settings (Lipsky 2014; Lipsky and Avgar 2010).

S46 DICKEY

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 is article presents four best-practice recommendations derived from

the fi rst empirical research on ICMS operation in unionized workplaces.

It uses data from a comparative study of three bargaining units—two in

which local unions agreed to use an ICMS and one in which the union did

not.  e study’s setting is the US Department of the Interior (DOI), home

to one of the longest continually operating ICMSs, covering over seventy

thousand employees, and one that operates in both union and nonunion

settings (US Department of the Interior 2011).

Several scholars and practitioners have found that some organiza-

tions use dispute resolution systems to avoid unionization. In interviews

for their 2003 book, Emerging Systems for Managing Workplace Confl ict,

Lipsky, Seeber, and Fincher found several corporate leaders who “readily

admitted that union avoidance was a principal motive for their use of ADR

in employment relations” (133). But in a recent study, Avgar et al. (2013)

found that “most corporations do not adopt ADR practices and policies to

avoid unions, in part because for many major corporations there is no real-

istic threat of unionization” (101–102). Others have averred that ICMSs

can complement unions’ representational function in the workplace (Rob-

inson, Pearlstein, and Mayer 2005).

I argue that integration is possible and can be benefi cial for both unions

and organizations once certain considerations are addressed to ensure that

ICMSs complement and support unions’ roles in the workplace rather

than act as substitutes. I suggest that when introduced and maintained col-

laboratively in a way that engages unions as key co-owners of such systems,

ICMSs can ultimately be made more eff ective and resilient in union than

in nonunion settings.

Unions and Integrated Con ict Management Systems:

A Limited History

An ICMS diff ers from individual workplace dispute resolution (ADR)

techniques and services—such as mediation, arbitration, coaching, facili-

tation, or support from an ombudsman—and from ADR programs that

may off er one or more of these techniques.  e key factor that distinguishes

the ICMS model is its integration of confl ict resolution techniques with a

commitment by an adopting organization to “manage the conditions that

give rise to confl ict and the resolution of disputes arising from confl ict”

rather than solely to focus on the resolution of disputes (Yarn 2014, 86).

 e authors of a 2001 Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution report