In late March, Isael Hermosilo received an ominous message from her supervisor around 7am, ordering that all scheduled meetings be cancelled that day.
Elmosilo rushed to notify some locals at United Food and Commercial Worker Union and the lawyers of the Albertsons and Kroger, running late that morning to notify him of a session held at Buena Park.
Two hours later, Hermosillo attended a video conference call, placed on a month’s paid administrative leave, and was informed by the supervisor that he was finishing his job.
Hermosillo is one of 130 federal mediators fired on March 26 after a Trump administration cost-cutting team called the Department of Efficiency (DOGE) effectively shut down a 79-year-old federal agency that mediates labor disputes.
Federal Mediation and Mediation Bureau, which are dismissals at government agencies, are equally concerned by unions and employers about who will intervene in mitigating labor disputes in Southern California and beyond.
According to former federal mediators and experts, government agencies are relatively small and obscure, but they play an important role in helping them resolve conflicts.
In addition to mediating private employer negotiations, mediators handle workers’ complaints. A train from the Joint Labor Management Committee. If the dispute cannot be resolved, an arbitrator will be appointed. Help the federal department to falsely negotiate. These services are offered for little or no free.
“We’re something that comes quietly when people are having problems or when contract negotiations aren’t working and falling apart,” Elmosilo said. “We’re going in and supporting us, then we’re going to move on to the next group that needs our support. I think that’s a lot of the reasons why people in America don’t know who we are and what we’re doing.”
Hermosillo works in the agency’s Los Angeles office in Glendale, with five mediators and one supervisor.
His firing was caught off guard by employers and unions, according to Kathy Finn, president of UFCW Local 770.
Finn has been trusting him in multiple cycles since around 2017, as Hermosillo has been working on negotiations for many years, and they have attracted him very early in the process.
“We’ve always had difficult negotiations with these companies. …We’ve been struggling multiple times, ending or reaching contracts minutes or hours before the deadline,” Finn said. “The support provided by Isael is invaluable.”
The UFCW Local 770 is one of seven locals representing workers from San Diego to Santa Barbara, and will give a Labour Party talk with the owners of the parents of Vons and Pavilions Chains and Kroger, who owns Ralph.
Finn said mediators like Hermosilo are very effective. Without them, negotiations could be categorized as finger pointing rather than being a productive session focusing on the content of the contract, Finn said.
Neither Kroger nor Albertsons returned requests for comment.
Doge and the US Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment either.
Last week, the UFCW joined 12 major unions to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to reverse federal agency closures. The lawsuit filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York argues that the dismantling of the Trump administration’s mediation office would “explicitly rebel” against Congress’ constitutional powers, creating and disbanding such an agency.
In 2024, the agency, with a budget of $54 million, employed around 143 full-time mediators, conducted mediation negotiations with over 5,400 people, and provided about 10,000 arbitration panels. The lawsuit shows that recent estimates show that mediator services save more than $500 million a year. The lawsuit cites data from the agency’s websites that have been scrubbed over the last few weeks.
The lawsuit says five mediators and several support staff workers remain at the agency after the cuts.
Martin H. Marin, professor emeritus at the Chicago Kent College of Law, and Martin H. Marin, a mediator who served on the false panel of federal service between Obama and the Biden administration, said several major employers and trade associations were petitioning the Trump administration to reverse the decision.
“No one will talk about this publicly,” Marin said. “They can see this hair trigger mentality in the White House. Everyone is afraid.”
Doge says the agency will limit its services to labor disputes involving more than 1,000 employees. However, Marine said that despite these restrictions, the workload is too large for the rest of the mediators.
“It’s impossible for four mediators to cover the entire country,” Marin said. “Status, that’s pretty bad.”
Tina Littleton, another federal mediator at the Glendale office, worked at the agency for 15 years, was left unsure of the decision.
“Do you feel this was done correctly or properly?” Littleton asked. “My answer is no.”
Littleton recently facilitated negotiations with around 200 workers and their employers. The employer manufactures plastic pouches used to distribute IV injections in medical facilities.
“It’s not an issue for us, big or small. They still have the part they play when making sure that interstate commerce continues,” Littleton said.
Martha Figueroa, a representative of the field that helps the California Federation of Teachers negotiate contracts, said she frequently relies on federal mediators. She worries about her potentially having to resort to private mediators who are “really, really expensive.”
“When you have a private mediator, it’s very stressful for both parties,” Figueroa said. “The more you are at the table, the more they get paid, and when you have a public mediator, that’s not.”
William Resh, an associate professor of public policy and management at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy, said dismantling the institutions would create more inefficiency, rather than saving money.
“What you have without mediation is a conflict that will become longer and more controversial,” Resh said. “These are highly professional individuals with a lot of experience in negotiation and conflict negotiation.”
California and several other states are exploring how they can fill the gap.
The California Public Employment Relations Commission, which oversees disputes between California workers and their employers, also has the authority to provide mediation services to private employers, but has no budget to do so, said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation. The Labor Group said it would promote budget consultations to state legislators to increase the board’s budget by millions of dollars.
“The state benefits in the long term. They don’t want people to go on strike. Sometimes that’s what you need, but most of the time, if mediation can get a good solution, we prefer it,” Gonzalez said.
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