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Did you help the parties prepare for mediation or any joint meetings?
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Efrain
Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I did have them analyze
some of the circumstances. I had them look at other communities
with a similar situation, what was relevant to Jasper that they
could be doing. And what they could expect, since there was a
stage set, media, and worldwide attention, that they could expect
other people from the outside, or maybe inside coming in to use
that stage. When that happened, they were prepared for that.
When I mentioned other communities, when the Klan was coming or
somebody else was coming, they had counter demonstrations, and
some communities didn't have anything, so they chose for
themselves after analysis, that it was best for them not to do
anything. Just maintain a calm and not react to the people
coming in. So we followed their lead, we really tried to
maintain that cooperation.
One of the issues that they mentioned were problems that had
been there historically.
Then we
helped analyze with them what some of those things were that they
could be doing to address that. Which was the better path?
After many meetings everybody had a role to play in the creation
of the Mayor's Task Force 2000, and we gave them technical
assistance in that. Also discussing with them that if
they were to focus on the future, that they could be better able
to handle the present. They would then have a plan how they're going to
reach that future and then they could withstand whoever came in
and out, and whoever had other agendas and the city was not
focusing on where they wanted to be. And they would decide where
that place was, and how they're going to get there. It would be
essential that before they decided where they wanted to be that
they should discover where they were. And once they discovered
where they were, and everybody understood where they were, then
they could shed more light on where they needed to be and how
they're going to get there. Through a lot of meetings and a lot
of private discussions they did that and formed the Mayor's Task
Force 2000, formed of all the elements in the community. There's
always consequences for doing something, and consequences for not
doing anything. So there were pretties, and as you know the
mayor's African American, and the head of the chamber of commerce
is African American, the board president who had been there
twenty years is African American, or he just resigned, the head
of one of the major employers, the hospital. Two of the city
council members are African American. A lot of people they
themselves credit that as to why the town was able to cope with a
lot of things. Other communities are not composed like that, and
may not have been able to handle it as well. Fifty percent of
the population is black or about that much out of 8,000. This
incident happened in the county.
When we were discussing and I asked him what area are you
going to cover because it was in Jasper, and we talked about
creating a vehicle to take them into the future, but this vehicle
would be Jasper owned and operated, they would decide where they
would go, who was going to be in it, how the vehicle is going to
be shaped, and how they were going to get there. The mayor and
others felt that although it may be a Jasper vehicle that it
would be inclusive of the areas outside of Jasper too, like the
creek area where the killing occurred. Critics on both sides
said that it wasn't going to work, it would be a white wash, they
were going to hide things, and there's no problem. Yeah we've
got problems, we're not perfect, but things are okay. Things
have happened here, and there have been other incidents that have
just been kept covered up and we have longstanding issues.
We kind of agreed with them that the creating of a vehicle
in a public manner through community dialogues and small town
hall meetings they could discover where they were. All of those
meetings were public and the way they organized the task force is
it's composed of different committees. The task was to do a self
examination of the law enforcement, of the education system, and
of the business community. These committees are composed of
representatives of the whole, but with representatives of those
entities and the committee was going to take a self look, so then
they organized these meetings. I had sketched out a skeleton of
an organization but they even did me better. They got really
sophisticated and came back with an official organization
structure that really was great because it covered everybody.
And everybody participating in the process of this self look.
That's recommendable to any community, to take a self look of all
facets of the community, and based on that self look come up with
a plan. It's not like me looking at you and pointing out your
faults, but together let's see what we can do better here. That
was published in the newspaper, the results and the finding of
all those meetings. So they proved wrong those that felt it was
going to be covered up, because it was very obvious what happened
right there in the paper.
Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Let's talk a little bit more about the issue of power disparity between the parties, and CRS's
role as a neutral. Even though you say you are a neutral, you also, in a sense, try to empower the
low-power group, do you not? How do you balance that?
Answer:
If you mean how do I justify that, let's start with that piece first. Very easily, because I don't
think I can do an effective job of mediating between two parties if there isn't some balance there.
So unless I help bring about that balance, mediation won't work. Of course, you can't necessarily
assume that because one side is a minority community that it's the powerless community. That's
another issue. But let's assume that, in fact, there is a power imbalance. Unless I can help balance
that, and empower each party to effectively participate at the mediation table, we're not going to
have an effective, successful mediation. So I explain that to the institution and I offer pre-
mediation training to both sides. I also use that as a way to help each of the parties identify what
their interests and concerns are, and what they hope to get out of this process.
Sometimes, that's particularly important for the institution, because they often start out from the
perspective of, "Okay, how much do they want, and how much of that are we going to give
them?" They rarely think in terms of, "What do we want, and how much of that are we going to
get?" The reality is that they usually do want something from the community, so this helps them
become aware of that. This is another trust-building mechanism as well because I'm
acknowledging that, "You need things too! What is it that you want? What is it that you're
looking for?" I want to make sure that both sides are heard and that we can talk about how each
side's needs can be met. I also let the institution know that it's in their best interests to have a
well-trained, capable party on the other side because it will be easier to deal with and negotiate
with them if they are capable. Part of what the institution is afraid of is that they will have a
group of ranting, raving maniacs on the other side that they can't communicate with.
So part of what I'm providing is some security, some format which is reasonable from their
perspective. I may say to the institution, "Now, you understand that party A is angry and they're
going to need to express that. But trust me, we're going to get beyond that, and get to problem-
solving." So I lay the groundwork for there being some anger. I hate to call it "venting," because
to me "venting" sounds too patronizing. I don't want to be allowed an opportunity to vent; I want
to be allowed an opportunity to be heard. So, even though the term "venting" might apply, I
avoid that word because it does sound patronizing to me. It has undercurrents of, "They're just
spouting off, and they really have nothing to say." In most cases they have a lot to say, but
they've never been allowed to say it and be heard before.
Once both parties understand this process and it's really part of the ground rules or at least the
"ground expectations" that's going to make the process much more effective. If I explain this to
the institution, they'll understand that. They also understand that it's going to take less time to
train a police department to come to the table as a team than it does the community (with a police
department, it's easy, they just look to the chief if the chief says it's okay, it's okay, even
though they're there as a team.) In terms of a community, they require a lot more ground rules, a
lot more preparation, in terms of how they're going to operate at the table.
If there isn't a clear leader, sometimes, I try to split up the leadership role. I try to have different
people on the community team take responsibility for leading negotiations around certain issues,
so that everyone is head-honcho for a while. But doing that, and helping them to identify their
interests and needs, is going to take longer than it does with a police department or a school
district. But the institution recognizes that when they're at the table, their time is going to be
better-spent and there'll be less time wasted if we do it this way. So they're not worried about the
time the fact that I might spend three times as much time with the community as I do with the
institution. They understand that it all helps to lay better groundwork for the process at the table.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Our next step was to get this into mediation quickly. I think
that was October 12, and we began that weekend and had the first mediation session on Oct. 17.
We moved on it very quickly. They already had the issues. In a lot of
the cases we are involved in, the community doesn't have the issues framed properly for
negotiations. Part of our process is getting the problems and concerns structured in an issues and
demands type of format so that they can be negotiated. In this case, it was going back and forth
to the administration -- they already had the student demands -- and whom we thought should be
at the table. At the table at the initial mediation session were the president, the
chancellor, the provost since some of the issues related to the faculty, the chief of security, the
vice-chancellor of student affairs, the director of student life and his assistants, and the director of
affirmative action. The students had their representatives from their organization, ALANA. We
met with them on how to proceed and it started to fall into place. In many ways they accepted all
of our procedures. We would be the spokespersons in the dealings with
the media. The administrators and the students would not talk to the media during the
negotiations.
Question:
Talk about those procedures.
Answer:
We wanted to make sure that they were both on the same page as to how we wanted to
proceed. We laid out how we would like to see the mediation process
proceed. We would set up the agenda; the mediators would control the mediation session. The
two parties would have their own spokespersons and those spokespersons could have any of their
other members speak so long as it was an orderly process. We indicated that these are the issues
and here is how we are going to proceed, what process we were going to use in dealing with the
issues.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Did you do anything that you haven't mentioned to help prepare
the students to be ready for that next step or were they pretty much ready? You said that they had
an agenda.
Answer:
They had an agenda but we talked with them and assured them how it was going to proceed
and the most important thing was our view of the administration's good faith. That this was
going to lead to something. What they really wanted to do, here's how they wanted to do it.
"Give them the demands and you feed back to us what they're going to do." They told us, "We
gave them our demands and we want to hear from them." It's an exchange of papers. I said, "I
don't think that's the way to really do it. We'd like to make sure that we sit down together and
talk about these issues. You explain what you want and they explain, but there is some
information that has to be exchanged. Otherwise, it's not going to work. In the past there have
just been promises. Let's go through these issues and work out what an agreement is. What is
the administration going to say about your demands?" So we talked about the complexity, the
demands, and the mediation process and how you reach an agreement so that people can live up
to it. "It's a good faith agreement and each party needs to know what's entailed in carrying this
thing forward and arriving at a solution." The students' sense of it was, give it, come back and
that's the end of it.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Did you work with either party before mediation to prepare
them for the table?
Answer:
Yes, Larry Myers and I met with the parties several times to go
over the issues, to insure consensus by the Ohlone People and to confirm the parties agreement to
cooperate and select spokespersons of their respective teams. I had
worked with the Ohlone on a number of other cases with other cities. So I was very familiar with
many of the parties. And in the consensus building, we outlined exactly
what worked, what the process was, and what we hoped to accomplish, and shared this with the
institution to meet with them, and assess their sincerity to try to meet some agreement on these
issues. I think the institution was very sophisticated and supportive of what we were trying to
accomplish in extensive meetings to prepare the Ohlone for mediation.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Could that be shared in preparing them to come to the table?
Answer:
I thought I was dealing with a fairly sophisticated group and I didn't think I needed to do
that, but it wasn't something I openly shared with them.
Question:
Then the sophistication of the group becomes an important factor in how much assistance
you feel a need to provide.
Answer:
Yes. We had university professors in that group and I thought they could champion and
knew that community and I didn't feel that I needed to do much more with them, but I guess they
weren't street-wise in that situation.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
That's why I think our pre-mediation process is so valuable
because we need to, in our own way, have the parties believing that they're going to have a fair
shake at the table and that they come to the table with leverage as equals.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I think sometimes, particularly with community
organizations, we have to spend some time in the pre-mediation preparing them for that. That
sense of empowerment and valuing their position in their ability to expect some take as well as
some give.
| Renaldo Rivera
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Do you ever train a group to prepare for negotiations? How far do you go and do you tell
the other party that you are doing this?
Answer:
You have to. You tell both parties that you are going to meet with each party. What I do is
I tell them who I'm meeting with. If I didn't they're going to find out anyway, or lets say they
didn't find out, if they should find out it compromises all of my effectiveness because they don't
trust me anymore.
Question:
If you were to sit down with a city official and he asked, "Who was at that community
meeting you attended," what do you say?
Answer:
That doesn't happen. That's not what I'm interested in doing. Then I am being used by the
city official. What you tell the city official is, "I'm going to be meeting with members of the
community groups, who would you recommend?" And they would suggest certain groups. That
doesn't mean those are the only people I meet with. When I meet with the community groups and
I've already met with the city official, I say, "Look I've already met with the mayor," or "I've met
with this city council person and he suggested this group of people and then we have this large
group that you suggest, so now I want to talk with you about your concerns. As I told the mayor
(or city official), this is confidential and I can only share what you permit me to share with the
other side." So I've already asked the officials, "Is it okay that I tell them that you suggested that
I meet with such-a-such group?" If he says, "No," then I don't tell the other groups. If he says,
"Yes," then I tell them. And I do the same thing with the community groups. So, now, I'll be
asked, "Who was at the meeting?" I would say, "Well, what kind of meeting would you like?
Would you like to have a session?" I would just take him off the point rather then answer his
question. I just ignore it. I'm not about ready to say who was who unless "who was who" wants
them to be known as "who was who" with officials. Sometimes their previous antagonism has so
skewered their viewpoints of the current issue, they would immediately stop all processes and say
that's so-and-so doing such-and-such all over again. That only has the same dynamic of
so-and-so and such-and-such saying well that's just the mayor doing what they do all the time.
So, it's not useful.
Question:
How do you prepare them for the negotiation?
Answer:
First thing is we've got to get ground rules straight. And the ground rules will be around
who will do the talking, who will be their representatives that will be speaking, will those people
be present for all the sessions, and then what some of the kinds of the concerns that they have are
that they would like to address in some kind of prioritized order. While it doesn't move to single
text, you're trying to negotiate and trying to get them as close to single text beforehand. Which
means that at least each set of parties in the conflict will have it's set of concerns. Surprisingly
enough a lot of them wind up overlapping much of the time. Surprisingly enough to the parties
in the conflict anyway. So, then you need to introduce the ways in which the mediation sessions
will take place and the fact when CRS does formal mediation, it's our process. It's not somebody
else's process. The extent that you want CRS to participate means that it will be CRS's process
and not anyone else's. If they aren't comfortable with that then we are happy to identify someone
else, but when we move to formal mediation it's done in a very standard and particular way by
CRS. The other one is that there will be no media contacts during the mediation, and it's agreed,
except with us, at CRS. Now that doesn't always happen that way, but that's what we insist upon
if there is going to be media contact that it's going to be with us so that we can talk about where
things are at without putting things that are in the mediation process out in the public. Those are
the basics, the ground rules; who the representatives are, consistency over time, identifying the
substantive issues, what the CRS and mediator's role is going to be, and then how does that rule
interact with the media. That all goes into the preparatory sessions. The other part that goes into
meeting with the aggrieved parties and community groups tends to be while you're listening to
these long meetings and their concerns about others, whether or not if you say it that way is that
the most effective way to bring your point out.
Question:
So, you do early negotiation training with them?
Answer:
Yes, that's what you're doing. You wind up with the same thing with officials only the
language is different and sometimes the anger levels are expressed differently. But then they've
got the power. They can choose to do things or not do things based on their own prerogative.
What we try to do is get them to exercise their prerogatives in a less flimsical fashion or a less
personalized fashion and try to move them in negotiation training to looking at the larger
community interest rather than look at the narrow interest that they might be placed in because of
the nature of the current controversy. So you have to do that with both sides prior to the table.
Then at the table you have to go back through the same sets of things again, so that there are
agreements with everybody about what the ground rules are and how the representation will take
place and what the preliminary concerns might be and what the general shaping would be and
what CRS role is going to be. Then people will still try to sabotage the CRS role and you will
have to assert it. If you are dealing with black community groups you'll have some black
executive caucus member show up who is used to being highly respected and responded to and
you'll have to say well, that would be a decision you would make if you were running the
mediation session, but in this mediation session we are going to do it a little differently. You
might have to do the same thing with the mayor who would say, "Well this is the way..." and I
say, "Well Mr. Mayor with all do respect at this time that may be an approach you would take in
another circumstance, not the approach you want to take here and if that's the approach you want
to take then perhaps you don't need us to be here anymore." That usually will get a mayor or a
mayor's representative to realize that they couldn't do it without you and so rather than back out
of CRS they'll temper themselves. So you have to manage the mediation process pretty
effectively and consistently.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
You raised the issue and put it at the head of the agenda. Had you
discussed that with the parties before the first mediation session?
Answer:
Oh sure.
Question:
Talk about the preliminary meeting that led up to coming to the table.
Answer:
Before that first meeting we spent several days at U Mass going back and forth at night to
our residences. The president, the chancellor and the vice chancellor were all involved. This
was getting wide publicity, especially after we came on campus.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
We said, "Do
you know the data? Do you know how to address the issues, and what are your demands?
Someone needs to get some of the information related to the demands from the administration
beforehand."
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
When I bring the parties to the table we have already gone
through the ground rules once, usually in the pre-mediation session.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
What kind of preparation do you give
to parties before you sit
down to bring them together?
Answer:
If I observe that one group is not able to negotiate with another
group
on a particular level, then we try to bring them up to that level. It'll never occur that they'll
be on a really level field, but at least they should understand some of the things that might
happen and some of the processes that might take place. Also, you talk to them in terms of the
potential for the city or official group to try to buy them and not really do anything to fix the
problem.
Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I try to coach them to be clear, to present their needs, and to state their position. I start with, "What do you think is important for the other party to know? Who's going to say that? Who's going to present that?" I also tell both sides that part of my role as mediator is to control the process, and that I'm not going to let it get out of control. They also need to understand that there are some emotions here and there is some anger here and that is part of what we're here for, but to trust me, that I'll keep it under control. So far I've been able to do that. It's more than just coaching on how to be calm participants. It's an approach that they themselves pick up and use. Again I've not always seen that happen. I've seen it enough times to sort of almost marvel at the change in presentation. It's not a change in outlook, but it's a change in presentation. I think probably they're wanting to be seen as people who are sincere and wanting to work this out, so they believe that they need to appear to be reasonable, controlled and organized in making their presentation. So yes, I do some preparation towards that, but it's more than that, it's more than just good pre-mediation training. To some extent I admire them because we had very sophisticated people on both sides, as opposed to the more grassroots leadership that I frequently work with. That degree of sophistication means we still made some preparation. We make sure we work with both sides so that they recognized what their specific needs were and what some of the options and alternatives might be. We didn't do the kind of basic role playing that I might with a more grassroots party.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So we got together, and pretty soon it was obvious that although I had
some
folks that were educated in the sense of negotiating, these guys had it by the tail. They would be
able to run around these things.
So we had to then call a recess and get together with the folks and sort of go through mock
meetings, explaining what to do, what to say, that kind of thing. Eventually I asked, "Do you
feel ready?" "Okay. Fine," they said.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So they were prepared. It's their
choice to ask for whatever they want. Whatever's going to please
them. Whatever they think is going to make it right. But in any
discussion or negotiation, you may not get everything you want,
or you may get more than you want, or you may get what you want
but maybe in a slightly different way. If you ask for chocolate
ice cream you may get strawberry ice cream, you still get ice
cream, but in a different flavor. But if all you wanted was ice
cream the choice of flavors is just a little extra.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
There's all levels of groups, levels of
sophistication, and levels of experience and sometimes they
require very little of us. Sometimes it requires more
preparation. I would say most groups are very sophisticated, so
we just need to help them and they do it themselves.
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