Labor Mediator

Labor Mediator

Help Montana's public employers and labor organizations turn difficult workplace conflicts into productive conversations and practical solutions. The Employment Standards Division is seeking a Labor Mediator to provide impartial mediation, training, and facilitation services that support stable labor-management relationships across the state. In this staff-level position, you will work directly with public-sector parties navigating collective bargaining, grievances, and employment-related disputes, helping them communicate effectively, understand one another's interests, and identify mutually acceptable paths forward.

Your work will make a meaningful difference for public employees, employers, and the Montana communities they serve.

Empowering all Montanans through work and opportunity. It's about the people and the impact we make in our communities every day. We are proud of our open, team-based, supportive, and collaborative work environments. Learn more about DLI here.

As a Labor Mediator, you will serve as an impartial, neutral third party assisting public employers and labor organizations with resolving labor relations disputes and improving their ongoing working relationships. You will prepare for and facilitate mediations involving collective bargaining negotiations, grievances, and employment-related matters, using both traditional and interest-based dispute-resolution approaches. This position also delivers training and facilitation in Interest-Based Bargaining and Labor-Management Committee practices, helping parties build skills for collaborative problem-solving outside of formal disputes.

Through careful preparation, active listening, clear communication, and sound judgment, you will support fair, respectful, and effective labor relations throughout Montana's public sector.

Meaningful statewide impact:
Help public employers, labor organizations, and employees work through conflict constructively, supporting stronger workplace relationships and more effective public services for Montanans. Purposeful conflict-resolution work:
Use mediation and facilitation skills to help parties move beyond positions, identify underlying interests, and develop solutions they can support. Specialized professional experience:
Build and apply expertise in public-sector labor relations, collective bargaining, grievance resolution, interest mediation, and collaborative problem-solving. Varied, people-centered work:
Balance mediation preparation and facilitation with training, relationship-building, research, documentation, travel, and statewide outreach. Professional growth:
Continue developing practical skills in impartiality, negotiation, active listening, communication, meeting facilitation, and labor-relations analysis. Collaborative public-service environment:
Join a team committed to fairness, accountability, customer service, continuous improvement, and respectful engagement with diverse stakeholders.

Conduct labor mediations:
Provide neutral mediation services for public-sector collective bargaining negotiations, grievances, and employment-related disputes, helping parties explore options and pursue voluntary resolution. Prepare parties and processes:
Review relevant agreements, correspondence, issues, and background materials; clarify the purpose and structure of mediation; and prepare for joint or separate meetings with the parties. Facilitate productive dialogue:
Establish a respectful, structured setting that supports calm communication, active listening, and meaningful participation by all parties. Identify interests and concerns:
Confer with public employers and labor organizations to clarify disputed issues, identify underlying needs and interests, and assist parties in understanding areas of agreement and disagreement. Apply neutral resolution methods:
Use appropriate dispute-resolution techniques to help parties assess options, address barriers, and develop mutually acceptable solutions without advocating for either side. Deliver IBB training:
Provide training and facilitation in Interest-Based Bargaining and interest-based problem-solving methods that emphasize communication, shared information, interests, and consensus-based solutions. Facilitate labor-management committees:
Train and assist Labor-Management Committees in addressing workplace concerns outside the collective bargaining process and strengthening ongoing labor-management relationships. Support statewide education:
Assist with…