The recent changes in the global labour market have affected traditional labour dispute resolution methods. The place of adversarial rights-based processes such as labour tribunals or arbitration is not in dispute, but alongside this is a growing recognition of the value of effective consensus-based dispute resolution methods including conciliation and mediation.

Nowadays, conciliation/mediation plays an important role in the way in which employers, employees and their representative organisations, including trade unions, find agreed solutions to common problems in the workplace, enterprise and different levels.

An agreement reached through conciliation/mediation usually has benefits for all parties involved.
First, it creates an opportunity for disputing parties to find a mutually beneficial solution to a dispute when negotiation has failed.

Secondly, the intervention of an independent conciliator/mediator often helps parties reduce the extent of their differences. The outcome of a successful labour conciliation/mediation is a new equilibrium that resolves the prevailing dispute and establishes the foundations of a more co-operative relationship.

Finally, it is well known that when parties have agreed the terms of the resolution to a dispute instead of having a decision imposed upon them by a third party, they are much more likely to comply with that outcome. Enforceability is therefore much less of a problem.