ABSTRACT
Third party intervention in labor-management conflicts is a complex human interaction involving a number of actors in a particular form of conflict behavior. This chapter suggests a considerable departure from the problem-solving approach to conflict management. Third party intervention in labor-management conflicts is more concerned with specific outcomes, than with establishing specific processes of decision making. The consultation-based, problem-solving approach is not directly applicable to labor-management conflicts. There are sufficient ambiguities and tensions in conflict management without in any way succumbing to the need to offer a new role structure for third party intervention. The parties engaged in conflict management are not the individuals directly involved, but representatives whose behavior is constrained by certain variables. Third parties, in intergroup conflicts, can reduce some of the situational and role pressures, they can not affect the personal-cognitive element in conflict management. A third party, in intergroup conflict, does not act to develop the conditions of problem-solving.
