The mediation pact with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will mediate all eligible discrimination cases prior to an investigation or litigation.

Author: Stephen Alexander – Family Dollar Stores, Inc, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) signed a mediation pact to resolve workplace disputes through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). The agreement calls for mediation before an EEOC investigation or potential litigation and covers an estimated 50,000 team members for Family Dollar Stores throughout the United States.

Family Dollar Stores currently does business in more than 7,200 stores in 45 states. It’s a Fortune 300 company, based in North Carolina in the Charlotte area. Family Dollar Stores is a publicly held corporation with common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FDO.

The pact is under the National Universal Agreement to Mediate (NUAM). It covers all eligible charges of discrimination filed with the EEOC when Family Dollar Stores is named as an employer or respondent.

Under NUAM, such cases will be sent to the EEOC’s mediation unit. Family Dollar Stores will assign a corporate representative to deal with all matters related to any potential charges in order to arrange an the mediation.

Bryan Venberg, the Family Dollar Stores’ Senior Vice-President – Human Resources, says that providing workers an “opportunity to be heard” through the EEOC’s mediation program “provides all parties the opportunity for a fair resolution to any workplace charges.”

Thus far, the EEOC has signed pacts with 257 national and regional private sector employers, including several Fortune 500 companies. Expanding the use of mediation is a key focus of the EEOC’s efforts to improve performance.

Moreover, the EEOC has signed pacts with around 1,850 employers at the local level. The success rate for mediation at the EEOC is around 70%.  Since 1999, almost 150,000 charges of discrimination have been mediated.