Dispute Management
Twin Lakes Case Study
Dispute resolution is a technique for resolving disputes through negotiation. It is a longer process that comprises numerous steps.
It is important in resolving certain types of conflicts that may form between employers and employees or between the government and various corporate bodies, but the main objective of this process is the amicable settlement of the disputes[1].
The way of resolving disputes can be divided into two different ways, which are given below:
- Adjudicative processes:
These are the dispute resolution processes that take the form of litigation or arbitration. In an adjudicative process there remains a jury or a judge plays the role of settling the dispute and forming the result.
- Consensual process:
This process comprises of the ways where the parties to the dispute takes the lead role in solving the dispute in an amicable way, the instances of consensual process can be regarded as mediation, conciliation or negotiation.
The various way of resolving disputes alternatively are given below:
These are the alternative methods of resolving disputes where the parties chose to resolve disputes by negotiation among them without taking the help of legal enforcements by the courts[2].
In the present case, an environmental dispute has arisen between the council of Tamarack and Twin Lakes Mining Company[3].
2. Background to the case
Twin Lake Mining Company is an organization that has been involved in mining activities for a long time. It is located in Tamarack, Minnesota.
The city of Minnesota is a popular spot to the tourists during the summer it is also a very popular tourist spot and it is regarded that tourism makes a considerable contribution in the revenue of the city there are also certain cottage industries that contribute to the revenue of the city but still it is regarded that the city has a single industry upon which it depends, the major population of the city are employed in the Twin Lake mining Company[4].
The Twin Lake mining company under takes certain processes for the benefaction of the ores that it extracts and as a result of that the company gets benefited from different ways.
The benefaction of the ores helps the organization in reducing the rejected ores helps in lessening the cost of carriage, it also helps in reducing the cost of removing the impurities which would have cost more is done during smelting, secondly, the benefaction of the ores helps the organization in blending with various physical and chemical properties and lastly the process helps to increase the value of the rejected materials by the process of pelletizing and briquetting.
With the extension of the locality, the company’s benefit plant has created a real problem for the local vicinity, though it is located five kilometers away [5].
As a consequence to that a dispute between the company and the local council has arisen. But it is found that Twin Lakes has filed to solve issues satisfactorily and as a result of that the company at present is facing immense pressure from both the state and federal environmental protection agencies to make the major environmental clean ups.
But at present, the company is not in a position to conduct the cleanup program because of the pressure of foreign competition, which has lessened the demand for ore, and the extraction of low-quality ores, which has decreased the organization’s revenue. It is regarded as difficult for it to spend $36 million on the cleaning process[6].
3. Statement of Main Issues
The increased pressure from the government and the community as well has forced the organization to undergo a fresh discussion with the city council.
There are certain issues that have surfaced from the discussion that both parties conducted, those issues are presented below:
- Water quality
Large amount of water is needed by Twin Lake plant in order to wash the ore. The ore which is washed with water are reduced to powder like substances. For this reason, settlement recovery pond has been built by the company beside Beaver Brook near the plants.
The water used to wash the ores is collected in the pond and then drained when the ore is recovered[7]. However, the effluents from the plants wash downstream and cause pollution, so the environmental agents have asked to clear the pond of all kinds of effluents.
But the cost of setting up a filtration plant is very $20 million and so Twin Lake is unable to bear the coat and hopes that Tamarack will help them in setting up the filtration plant[8].
- Air Quality
Mining, transporting, and crushing the ore generates a large amount of dust, which causes air pollution. The situation is further grim during the summer season.
Twin Lake is able to control the situation at the cost of $8 million. However, most of the roads are owned by the city. Paving, maintaining, and oil spraying the roads is very expensive, but environmental agencies may not accept an agreement to do this as a short-term measure [9].
- Taxation of company land
The mines are outside the city, while the plants are inside the city. The company has seen that the tax for the plants in the cities is very expensive, at $800,000 annually.
The company has to pay $400,000 to use the road for transporting the raw materials and finished goods from the plant. The city has offered the company to purchase the land at $2.2 million to $2.4 million. The company considers both prices very expensive.
4. Twin Lakes Preparation for Negotiation:
There are certain environmental issues that emerge from the processes are carried on by various organization and those issues are the responsible for creating conflicts with various authorities.
Management of such conflicts can be critical as they are highly complex in nature and involve every phase of the decision-making process. Appropriate management tools are required to minimize those complexities.
Certain conflict management strategies can be projected by stimulation games, which can be regarded as a management tool in which negotiation takes place among the parties who play the main role in managing the conflict. The negotiations involved in neutralizing environmental issues will help in bringing out the merits and demerits of those tools[10].
5. Goals and Issues
Environmental disputes generally consist of numerous interests. It can be ascertained by a negotiator involved in a dispute that what are the alternatives that can be acceptable to all the parties in the conflict when the negotiator is in the position to identify the interests.
With the increase in the number of parties in the conflict the task of ascertaining the alternatives gets more difficult[11]. Parties who have entered in the negotiation process relating to neutralization of disputes creating environmental issues are required to spend considerable time and resources for the purpose of tracking interests and histories and to measure the position of others and along with it the way they will precede and also their trustworthiness. Environmental games have a lot to do in relation to these situations
There is a need of appropriate resources that will be helpful in acquiring information and resources that in turn helps an organization in understanding the interests. In regards to the availability of resources there can be found variances in the availability of resources among different groups and individuals. This variation might cause an issue relating to imbalance of power[12].
6. Recommendations
Based on the negotiation preparation work it is recommended that TLMC shows interest in purchasing a TCC acquired land that will assist by investing funds in a joint efforts of TCC and TLMC to open a water filtration plant. In return the TCC will subsequently reduce the taxation obligations of TLMC.
TCC may also prefer that the TLMC takes responsibility of spraying roads in a shared manner with TCC and should take full responsibility of spraying company roads. A reduction in corporate taxation on TLMC should also be discussed in the negotiation phase.
7. Implementation
Once TLMC finalizes one strategy, it must implement it by briefing all the members of its team. The plant manager of the TLMC project should represent TLMC’s interests in negotiation. This will assist in building trust, and the person representing TLMC would be the one who understands the company’s interests as well as the business end of mining.
8. Conclusion
The paper presented provides detailed negotiation tactics and permutations for the Twin Lake dispute. The issue discussed in the paper has dynamic elements involved hence determining the outcome of the negotiation is not practical and not part of this paper assessment.
However, the paper follows a structured approach to listing possible outcomes based on the interests of both parties involved in the negotiation and the issues present. The report would assist TLMC in finding a well-suited solution through negotiation with TCC.
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