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GOES NORTH | ||
If
anyone has a reason to be concerned about the affordability of grievance
and other labour mediation services, it's people in Northern Ontario.
Most mediation firms are located in the south and charge big bucks to do
northern work. We're not like that. Over the years we've come
to appreciate the way of life and hospitality of our northern clients.
Many of us have family and friends in the north (IGSO founder Wanda S.
is originally from Pickle Lake and grew up in Manitouwadge). Since
starting our business, we've heard your concerns about costs and service
accessibility and have worked towards resolving those issues. To
this end, here are some of the policies and practices we've developed.
Our full day mediation flat rate of $600.00 is applicable for northern Ontario work just as it is in the south. To keep expenses down, we are willing to take advantage of airline seat sales and other reduced fare arrangements. As an example, if you are willing to hold your mediation meeting on a Friday or Monday, we can fly up on a reduced ticket of $229.00 (versus about $1100.00 - the full fare price during the week). We limit our travel expenses to reasonable accommodation and car rental expenses and will give you a fee estimate before you confirm the meeting with us so that there are no surprises when the invoice arrives. If we have other business booked in the north at the time you contact us, we will try to tee up your meeting with our other meetings and spread the expense costs out so that each client ends up paying less. Here is an example
(based on a Thunder Bay case) of what our clients paid for a full day mediation
session using the reduced airfare Monday or Friday meeting arrangement.
In this case the mediator flew in on a Saturday night to take advantage
of the low airfare and held the meeting on the Monday. You'll notice
that the total cost to each organization was only $579.50.
That's for a full day (so you deal with any number of grievances).
This total may work out to even less if we are able to add your meeting
to other dates we already have booked in the north. Compare this
to the cost of arbitration where you may spend thousands of dollars on
one grievance.
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