Remarks of Donna M. Gwin, Director of Human Resources, Safeway and Genuardi's

Meeting of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
EEOC Mediation Program and the Workplace Benefits of Mediation
December 2, 2003

EEOC Mediation Statement

I am a strong advocate for the EEOC mediation program, especially the Baltimore district office managed by Marie Sciscione. I have not always been a supporter of mediation. Prior to working for Safeway, I did not ever use mediation as a way to resolve EEOC charges of discrimination. I believed that if the company had done nothing wrong, why would the company mediate and agree to a resolution?

When I came to Safeway in 2001 I learned about mediation and the fact that Safeway was an advocate of the process. I was a bit skeptical, but began to attend mediations with our in-house counsel and started to see that this was a very interesting and value-added process.

As a result, Safeway has entered into a Universal Agreement to mediate with the Baltimore district of the EEOC, and since 2001, has been able to successfully mediate 90% of its EEOC cases. The professionalism of Marie Sciscione and her team of mediators has made this process exceptionally worthwhile, and I would highly recommend it to any company that has a charge filed against them. As a result of mediation, we are able to keep our pending EEOC claims to a minimum and avoid the time and money it takes to investigate and respond to a claim.

This page was last modified on December 2, 2003.