Case 3 –Chengdu Owners’ Committee vs.Management Co...
Location: The community office
Participants: The mediator (female, age around 55), a lawyer,three disputants and a secretary.
The Case:(https://www.daowen.com)
The conflict is between the heads of the management committee and the owners’ committee of a neighborhood community.Two people are from the owners’ committee and one is from the management committee.Dialogue between the parties had been ongoing for several months before turning to mediation.The head of the community office had collected information prior to the mediation.The heads of the owner’s committee complain that the head of the management committee of being tyrannical and does not respect their opinions on decision making and implementing the decision of daily affairs such as whether and who to collect the costs of air conditioning in the community activity room and what schedule should the room be run on.The two heads of the owners’ committee also have split views on some issues.
The Mediation Session:
The mediator talks for almost 15 minutes to try to persuade the disputants that there is nothing serious among them and asks the disputants to settle the problem peacefully.Then she invites the disputants to air their view.After each of the disputant speaks, they start to argue with each other.The lawyer then contributes a legal perspective to the mediation, and leaves to attend to other business.Then the parties start to argue with each other again and the head of the management committee ends up leaving the room angrily.The mediator and the other disputants continue to try to settle the dispute, and no agreement is reached due to the departure of the head of the management committee.It should be noted that after the mediation attempt failed, the head of the community office contacted me to inform me that the dispute had been settled after mediation sessions held with the two parties separately.