Ronald W. Haughton, an innovative mediator and arbitrator whose work put him in the forefront of major national labor disputes over 40 years, died on July 4 at his home in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 88 and also kept a residence on Martha's Vineyard, Mass.þþThe cause was complications after a stroke, his family said. þþStarting in the early 1940's, Mr. Haughton's efforts to resolve disputes took him back and forth around the country - from California vineyards to Detroit auto plants, from the docks to tobacco farms. þþBy his own estimate, he worked to resolve 4,000 cases in the public and private sector. Theodore W. Kheel, then New York City's chief labor mediator, recruited him from Detroit in 1970 to organize Mayor John V. Lindsay's new Board of Mediation for Community Disputes - as distinct from labor problems. þþHe led that experimental panel for two years as executive director while keeping his position as co-director of a joint Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University in Detroit. þþMr. Haughton was co-director from 1956 to 1979, after five yeas as impartial arbitrator for the Ford Motor Company and the United Automobile Workers. He was also chairman of their joint pension board from 1950 to 1978.þþIn 1979, President Jimmy Carter asked him to head the new three-member Federal Labor Relations Authority. That eventually put him in the middle of the salary dispute between the Reagan administration and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, which struck in 1981. With Mr. Haughton dissenting, the panel voted 2 to 1 in October to cancel the union's recognition as bargaining agent.þþIt was the first time a union was stripped of its right to speak for government employees. Its appeals failed in the federal courts, and the administration proceeded to fire the strikers and replace them. þþIn his dissent, Mr. Haughton argued that the dispute should be sent to a judge, provided the union called off the strike. When the union balked, he changed his vote, making it 3 to 0 for decertification.þþRonald Waring Haughton was born in Toronto and grew up in Seattle. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1937 and received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin a year later. þþHe worked on a General Electric assembly line while in school and in 1938 was hired to evaluate contested claims for the Washington State Unemployment Compensation Division. þþHe moved on to the national Social Security Board, and, from 1942 to 1945, he directed the strike division of the War Labor Board in Washington. He went to East St. Louis, Ill., to mediate a stubborn dispute that was hampering war production at a munitions plant. Arriving in town knowing nobody, he settled the strike in his quiet way by making friends on both sides, renting a house in East St. Louis and becoming a deacon in a local church. þþLater, the War Labor Board sent him to Detroit to deal with labor disputes. He went on to join the federal Conciliation Service and to serve as an assistant director of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, Berkeley. þþPresident Lyndon B. Johnson asked him to help with the racial integration of tobacco workers. In 1966, the California office called on him to mediate a dispute between Cesar Chavez and grape growers, an effort in which his personal contacts with Mr. Chavez and the employers averted a strike. þþHe continued to work privately as a mediator into his 80's. þþMr. Haughton is survived by his wife of 53 years, Anne Fletcher Haughton; three daughters, Jan Tracy of Safety Harbor, Fla.; Patty Haughton of Wilmington, Del., and Leslie Zemsky of Buffalo; a son, John, of Millersville, Md., and 13 grandchildren.þþ
Source: NY Times
