For fifty-seven years, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) has carried out its mission of preserving and promoting labor-management peace. The FMCS was created by Congress as an independent agency by the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947. Highly trained mediators provide conflict resolution services to our nation’s employers and their unionized employees with the goal of preventing or minimizing interruptions to the free flow of commerce growing out of labor disputes and improving labor-management relations. The core activity of the Service is collective bargaining mediation. It is a voluntary process in which mediators serve as third-party neutrals to facilitate the settlement of issues in the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements.