At the end of March, Isael Hermosillo received a disturbing message from his supervisor around 7 am, ordering him to cancel all his scheduled meetings that day.
Hermosillo rushed to inform several residents of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union as well as lawyers from Albertsons and Kroger that he would not be able to attend a session in Buena Park later that morning – the third consecutive meeting to be held this week for work interviews between the major channels of southern California and unions.
Two hours later, Hermosillo found himself at a video calling conference where he was informed by his supervisor that he would be on administrative leave paid for a month and that his work would be dismissed.
Hermosillo is one of 130 federal mediators who were dismissed on March 26 after the Trump administration cost reduction team, called the Government Ministry (DOGE), has actually closed a 79 -year -old federal agency that works in work differences.
The agency’s layoffs, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, have fueled the concerns of unions and employers who will intervene to help to mitigate the conflicts of work in southern California and beyond.
Although relatively small and obscure, the agency plays a vital role by helping to settle disputes in order to avoid labor disorders which can disrupt the free movement of trade, according to former mediators and federal experts.
In addition to negotiation negotiations for private employers, mediators manage the grievances of workers; train joint labor management committees; Name arbitrators if a dispute cannot be resolved; And help the negotiations in the federal sector. These services are offered for little or no fees.
“We are those who come quietly when people have contractual problems or negotiations do not work and do not collapse,” said Hermosillo. “We are entering and helping, then go to the next group which may need our help. I think that is a lot why Americans do not know who we are and what we do. ”
Hermosillo works in the Los Angeles office of the agency in Glendale, with five mediators and a supervisor.
His dismissal took employers and unions off guard – from the coming weeks after employment contracts covering some 55,000 syndicated grocery workers in California had expired – and launched a key in the negotiations, said Kathy Finn, president of the local section 770 of the UFCW.
Finn said that because Hermosillo has worked on negotiations for many years, on several cycles since around 2017, the two parties trust him and they train him very early in the process – which helped avoid strikes.
“We always have difficult negotiations with these companies. … We were very close to the strike several times, at the end or at the end of an agreement or hours before a deadline – or after,” said Finn. “The help that Isael brought was very precious.”
The local section 770 of the UFCW is one of the seven inhabitants representing workers from San Diego in Santa Barbara in work at work with Albertsons, parent owner of the Vons and Pavilions channels, and Kroger, who owns Ralphs.
Finn said that mediators as hermosillo are very effective. Without them, negotiations can be broken down into finger tips rather than becoming productive sessions focused on the substance of a contract, said Finn.
Neither Kroger nor Albertsons returned requests for comments.
DOGE and the American management and budget office also did not respond to requests for comments.
Last week, the UFCW joined a dozen major unions to bring legal action against the Trump administration to reverse the closure of the federal agency. The trial, submitted to the Federal Court of the South District of New York, argues that the dismantling by the Trump administration of the mediation service is “clear” Constitutional distrust of the Congress to create and dissolve these agencies.
During the year 2024, the agency, which has a budget of $ 54 million, employed around 143 full -time mediators which carried out more than 5,400 mediated negotiations and provided some 10,000 arbitration panels. And recent estimates show that mediators allow the economy of more than $ 500 million per year, according to the trial. The trial cites data from the agency’s website that has been repressed in recent weeks.
According to the trial.
Some major employers and professional associations have asked the Trump administration to overthrow the decision, said Martin H. Malin, professor emeritus at Chicago-Kent College of Law and mediator who sat on the federal panel on service impassations during the Obama and Biden administrations.
“No one will talk about it publicly,” said clever. “They can see this mentality of hair trigger in the White House. Everyone is afraid. ”
DOGE said the agency would limit its services to labor disputes that involve more than 1,000 employees. But Malin said that even with these restrictions, the workload will be too much for the remaining mediators.
“It is impossible for four mediators to cover the whole country,” said clever. “The situation is quite disastrous.”
Tina Littleton, another federal mediator of the Glendale office who worked at the agency for 15 years, was amazed by the decision.
“Do I think it was done correctly or appropriately?” Asked Littleton. “My answer is no.”
Littleton recently facilitated negotiations between some 200 workers and their employer, which manufactures plastic sachets used to distribute IV infusions in medical facilities.
“It doesn’t matter if big ones or young, they always have a role they play to ensure that interstate continuous trade,” said Littleton.
Martha Figueroa, a field representative who helps the California teachers’ federation to negotiate contracts, said that she had frequently reached a federal mediator in discussions with Head Start, the non -profit organization for the development of the Trump administration for financing cuts. She fears to potentially have to turn to private mediators, who are “really, really expensive”.
“When you have a private mediator, it’s very stressful for both parties,” said Figueroa. “The more you are at the table, the more they are paid. And this is not the case when you have a public mediator.”
Rather than saving money, the agency’s dismantling will create more ineffectiveness, said William Resh, an associate professor of public policy and soil management Price School of Policy of the USC.
“What you have without mediation are disputes that will be more prolonged, more controversial,” said Resh. “They are highly professional individuals with a lot of experience in negotiating and negotiating conflicts.”
California and several other states explore how they could fill the void.
The California employment committee, which oversees disputes between state workers and their employers, also has the power to provide mediation services to private employers, but it does not have the budget to do so, said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the Californian labor federation. Working groups have pushed state legislators into budgetary talks to increase the budget of the several million dollars council, she said.
“In the long term, the state benefits. We do not want people to go on strike. Sometimes, it is necessary, but for the most part, if mediation is able to help get a good resolution, we prefer that,” said Gonzalez.
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