Earlier today, the Trump Administration announced that they were effectively shuttering the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).
The federal service plays a key role in helping mediate disputes between companies and labor during contentious contract talks. Meditators are trained in how to figure out ways to get management and labor to settle contracts.
In 2024, the agency conducted over 5,000 meditations and provided over 10,000 arbitrations according to FCMS. The total budget of the agency is only 50 million a year - approximately 0.0014% of the federal budget.
Federal labor mediators told Payday Report that approximately 200 staffers of the agency would be put on administrative leave effective immediately.
Since Trump lacks the legal mandate to demolish the agency, meditators told Payday Report that a skeleton crew of approximately a dozen staff will be left behind, making the organization effectively inoperable in helping to settle contentious labor disputes.
“It’s a shame,” said one federal mediator, who spoke to Payday Report anonymously out of fear of retaliation.
“FCMS takes a lot of pride in the fact that we prevent strikes, prevent work stoppages,” said the meditator. “A lot of the work we did over the years was training on relationship development so that labor and management could work together during the contract talks.”
Labor organizations denounced the closure of the agency.
“Dismantling the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service—a small but important federal agency that helps bring labor and management together to solve problems between workers and employers—will be a destructive move for workers, businesses, and the economy as a whole,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in a statement.
Many business groups like FCMS because feelings between labor and management can often become toxic during talks. Having a third party mediator trained in how to tone things down can often help both labor and management prevent strikes that are costly for both sides.
“The people in the labor community are as up in arms as people in the business community are over this,” said the mediator. “It makes no sense.”
