In this interview with prominent representatives of the British Acas and the Belgian Social Mediators Service important developments in the ADR labour practice are discussed. In particular, the impact of the financial crisis and the ever advancing globalization process on the labour negotiating climate is the centre of attention.

In this article the authors describe aspects of mediation in individual labour conflicts. In doing so, they use jurisprudence, judgements of the disciplinary commission for mediators en their own experiences as mediators. They end with the conclusion that mediation in labour conflicts needs specific knowledge, additional to the general training for mediation.

In 2005 the Mediation Act came into force in Belgium. This act makes it possible starting a procedural and legal mediation procedure, besides the usual legal measures. This article starts with a short introduction to the legal measures and continues with some notable results of an inquiry to the social mediation field by B-Mediation in cooperation with the Federal Mediation Commission. The results of the inquiry are collected in the report Barometer van de bemiddeling 2012. The authors end with confronting the results with their own experiences and an explanation of their own model for practice, and the description of a recent case.

The authors give an insight into the Spanish developments in ADR in the recent years of economic crisis. The crisis has led to a fuller activation of the Spanish ADR system. The larger number of mediation processes is clearly related to the difficulties collective bargaining is going through. As a result of the latest liberal reform which decentralises collective bargaining, a new crack has opened in the overall system: since September 2012 there is regulation on the functioning of the National Consultative Committee for Collective Agreements, granting it the authority to solve any dispute arising between the undertaking and workers’ representatives regarding total or partial opting-out of the collective agreement. Furthermore, regions without an ADR system in place should forward such disputes in their territory to the Committee.

Here the authors report on the seminar ‘(Labor) Mediation in Belgium; Chances, challenges and bottlenecks’, which took place on September 11^th, 2013. During this seminar a debate took place between several mediation stakeholders in Belgium.