The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. have signed a Universal Agreement to Mediate (UAM) to resolve workplace disputes prior to an EEOC investigation or potential litigation.

One of the EEOC’s key efforts has been to expand mediation, thus far entering into 178 national and regional UAMs with private sector employers, including several Fortune 500 companies.

Additionally, EEOC district offices have entered into approximately 1,275 mediation agreements with employers at the local levels within their respective jurisdictions. Under the EEOC’s National Mediation Program, more than 110,000 charges of employment discrimination have been mediated.

Under the terms of the UAM, all eligible charges of discrimination filed with the EEOC Miami District Office in the State of Florida in which Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is named as an employer/respondent will be referred to the EEOC’s mediation unit, as appropriate.

Established in 1969, Cracker Barrel operates 582 company-owned locations in 41 states.

In Rael v. Davis, 166 Cal. App. 4th 1608, the California Court of Appeal considered the following issue: Is the waiver of confidentiality provision in a settlement agreement enforceable even if the agreement was not signed by all the settling parties? The Court answered the question in the negative and concluded that the trial court correctly held that the term of the agreement waiving confidentiality never took effect because one of the parties to the settlement had not signed it. The Court further held that as a result, the agreement was inadmissible and therefore, unenforceable in whole or in part.

Welcome to our first Improvisational Negotiation podcast. This month’s interview is with actor, professor and trial lawyer, Brian Breiter.

With employers cutting the most jobs in 34 years, 533,000 jobs in November alone, many are seizing this time as an opportunity to pursue a career change. For those who are considering a career in mediation, here are a few websites that will help get you started: 

http://www.nysdra.org/careers/careers.aspx
http://www.nafcm.org/pg29.cfm
http://careers.acrnet.org
http://www.mediate.com/jobs (requires paid membership)
http://www.mediate.com/acrgeorgia/pg11.cfm
http://www.usajobs.opm.gov - search “mediator” or related terms
http://peace.fresno.edu/rjjobs.php
http://www.nafcm.org/pg29.cfm
http://federalgovernmentjobs.us/ - sort by job title, search for related terms
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/nvms/jobs.htm
http://law.pepperdine.edu/straus/careers/

Outliers: The Story of Success is Malcolm Gladwell’s third installment of how people and social phenomena work. In his new book, Gladwell delves into what it takes to achieve high levels of success and how successful individuals at the top of their respective fields get there. As the myth of individual merit and intelligence is unraveled, Gladwell explores the “true” key factors for success … culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck.

When asked what he hopes readers take away from his new book, Gladwell responded saying:

I think this is the way in which Outliers is a lot like Blink and Tipping Point. They are all attempts to make us think about the world a little differently. The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, I wanted to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It’s because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances— and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds—and how many of us succeed—than we think. That’s an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.