Friday, December 20, 2002
Post-Mediation Arriving at the antisceptic
Post-Mediation
Arriving at the antisceptic office, we found no one there to let us in or tell us what to do - the story of my life, I guess. I waited in my power suit for others to relieve themselves; then they went out to find us coffee. Time passed slowly. I began to doubt the value of the process. We were there in time to start at 9 am but minutes crawled; the coffee came but nothing happened. Eventually we got into the office and were shown into a conference room, quite devoid of decoration save a Federal Conciliation Service plaque high on a wall. On a ledge, a target from a firing range lay perforated with a sloppy cluster of nine-milimeter holes - on the back, “From horseback at 100 yards.” Nice shooting, buddy. Management or Labor? We just waited for the show to start.
10:30: Now we had our mediator, and the Deputy ED against whom we’d arrayed; he’d brought his legal counsel too (outfitted in a suit shirt tie so much like mine we were chagrined) and several handouts, thick and dense. They started with a couple lines from “Blowin’ in the Wind” and then descended into a morass of paraphrasis, partial excerpts, false assumptions, all set forth to justify conclusions we’d come down to question. No, he didn’t bring the budget, actuarials, or money. First he said, “I think we can come to agreement” - then he started dancing madly. Accounts, ostensibly restricted, seemed to slop into each other very intimately; no one knew where surplus cash had gone; the brokers’ questionable theories held no water and were not explained. We asked to see the books but kept on hearing “that would make no difference. We don’t have the money.”
One pm: the mediator’s diabetic, needs her lunch. The rest of us are sick of sitting still for such unmitigated pap. We came for nothing - that’s what’s on the table. Break for lunch. At Clancy’s Crab Shack everyone is anxious, irritated, tired - all of us want beer but no one gets one. We order food and total tea and hone our gripes. The union rep’s cell phone goes off: would we accept (x y & z)? A moment’s caucus - yes we would, if nothing is our other option. We return with cautious optimism to the table; tell the boss we’re skeptical of information he still won’t divulge to us - we’re not about to act on faith. A lengthy sidebar with the mediator leaves us wondering, but she returns to set a date for us to meet again - the DED will take the issue for the Board to authorize a transfer - “interfund” - to get us part of what we want.
What had she done? And was this progress? I don’t know and I don’t know. But Bob was shaking when he made his presentation, changed his story vastly, told us he was on our side and wished he could do more for us. At least the mediator’s presence seemed to make him think he was accountable for what he said - no more “staff are replaceable” and “we can run this show without you.”
Now it’s night, dark 7:20, Bakersfield far below me. Maybe next time we’ll be finished. I don’t know how far we have to go but this sure felt like something positive was happening. If the mediator helped, we didn’t see what she was doing there behind closed doors at lunch and sidebar, but the process moved toward some manner of conclusion. Now I want to go back to my desk and do my job again. I can’t unclench my jaw. And far below on rain-soaked fields, tiny lights are flickering in murky vastness, full moon shines on mirror floodplains showing me the farmhouse lit is mired on all sides by standing water, small and fragile in the night and overwhelmed by lunar luminosity; we fly forward to the future. Waters have been known to part or turn to mist. And stranger things than that have happened. Even, once or twice, to me.
