Party-Directed Mediation Resolves Disputes

The second edition of Party-Directed Mediation: Helping Others Resolve Differences is now online. Written by Gregorio Billikopf, a labor management farm advisor with the University of California, this book explains two mediation models in depth. The first model is used to deal with conflicts among peers; the second, disputes between superiors and subordinates.

Party Directed Mediation: Helping Others Resolve Differences is an effort to present practical, sound, research-based ideas that will lead to the improved management of interpersonal conflict. While many of the concepts were developed through research in agriculture and agri-business firms, the methods have since drawn the interest of a range of people throughout the world.

The methods used require more time than traditional mediation, but are particularly well suited to volunteer mediators, intercultural conflicts when issues of saving face are important, and other conflicts in which emotional factors are high.

This approach is geared to help parties who will continue to live or work together after the mediator goes home and need to learn interpersonal negotiation skills to handle future differences.

To access the book online, go to
www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7conflict/. For more information on conflict management, contact Billikopf at 209-525-6800.

Book helps growers run a smoothe operation.