ROUNDTABLE BREAKFAST: MEDIATION "AT SCALE": The story of the near-collapse of the largest Tribal-Federal negotiations in a generation

ACR-GNY & CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College present

MEDIATION "AT SCALE":

In 2016, the US Department of Transportation initiated mission-critical negotiations with a body of tribal negotiators representing all 574 federally recognized tribes in the country to fund roadbuilding and safety measure construction across Indian country. This case study examines the mediation that rescued these negotiations from collapse and highlights some of the "adaptive mediation" (Dr. Peter Coleman et al, Columbia University) moves the mediation team used to turn these negotiations away from disaster and ultimately to success.

JOSHUA FLAX

Deputy Director of Policy & Strategy
Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service

After two decades as a U.S. Federal Mediator, Josh currently runs FMCS’s Office of Policy & Strategy, the agency’s internal arm for policy analysis, development, and promulgation to ensure FMCS provision of quality and timely conflict management services to the American public, nationwide.

In his prior role as the agency’s Chief Strategy Officer, Josh led a special projects team that was retained by other Federal agencies to facilitate large-scale, high stakes, multi-party negotiation processes such as regulatory negotiation, negotiated rulemaking and public policy negotiation. In this capacity, he recently served as the lead mediator for the multi-year Resource Management Plan public policy negotiations in Washington state for 17 Native American tribes, multiple state agencies, and multiple Federal agencies (2021-2022). In 2018-2020, Josh led the team mediating the Tribal Transportation Self-Governance Program negotiated rulemaking to help negotiators from the Federal government, US Department of Transportation, and a group of Tribal leaders representing all 574 Federally-recognized Native American tribes, develop a landmark consensus-based comprehensive agreement. Josh began his career as a federal mediator in 2001. His responsibilities included mediation of labor disputes, collective bargaining negotiations, grievance mediation, and relationship development and training for the private, non-profit, public, and federal sectors across industries such as manufacturing and production, healthcare, transportation and trucking, telecommunications, entertainment, defense contracting, higher education, and public education.

Josh completed his B.A. in Politics at Brandeis University and went to work in London, England. He returned to America for his graduate work at Harvard Kennedy School, where he focused on negotiation and conflict resolution. Josh is frequently invited to be a guest lecturer at HKS and was on faculty as adjunct lecturer in Management, Leadership and Decision sciences from 2013-2016.

Josh resides with his family in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and travels around the country regularly to deliver FMCS services.