Alternative Dispute Resolution Business Format

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Derrick Meaderds

Business Law/531

June 27, 2016

Jay Hinkel

To:  Jay Hinkel, Business Law/531 Instructor

From:  Derrick Meaderds, Student

Date:  June 27, 2016

Subject:  Alternative Dispute Resolution

I am an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with a privately own ambulance company.  Paramedics and EMTs went through this process about a year and a half ago with the company.  We had issues with our pay raises and working on the clock and not getting paid for it.  One of the issues with our pay that we had was that we were only getting a raise if California minimum wage went up.  We felt that we should have yearly evaluations and we should get a raise depending on our performance yearly regardless if minimum wage goes up.  The problem that we had with working on the clock and not getting paid was due to the fact that they wanted all field employees at work punched in 15 minutes prior to your shift to check out your unit and make sure that everything is working for your shift.  If your shift started at 6 am they wanted you there at 5:45 am and on the streets at 6 am.  If you was not on the streets at that time you was subject to receiving a write up depending on the situation.  

We hired a mediator to present our problems to the company management along with a senior field employee.  Mediation is a true alternative to litigation. It empowers the parties and gives them control over the outcome, rather than leaving them to sit behind lawyers waiting for a third party to impose a decision on who is right and who is wrong (Elnegahy, 2013).  We threaten to strike and go to court if our demands were not met.  We finally came to a solution and both parties were happy with the outcome.  In this situation we could only go to court for the working on the clock and not getting paid for it.  The company agreed to pay us for all the back pay for the last five years.  They also threw in an extra week of vacation for all employees.  We were all given a 5% raise and each year we would be able to earn a 6% raise based on performance each year.  In this situation mediation and a settlement was used for this.