Bill Simkin majored in economics while attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1937. He would later report having the good fortune of developed a relationship with Professor George W. Taylor, a famous labor-management arbitrator and in the view of scholars “the father of grievance arbitration.” Simkin became Taylor’s assistant in his mediation and arbitration practice, and ultimately Simkin developed his own arbitration practice.
During WWII, he performed dispute settlement work for the National War Labor Board. Following the war, he resumed his arbitration practice.
Bill Simkin was sworn-in as the fifth FMCS Director on March 31,1961 by President John Kennedy in a White House ceremony. President Lyndon Johnson reappointed Simkin extending his service to 1969.
At his White House swearing in, Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg remarked that Simkin was the first Quaker to be appointed FMCS Director. A life long Quaker, Simkin brought a peaceful, calm presence to all his conflict resolution work, and to the administration of FMCS. At the time of his appointment, the New York Times described Simkin as “one of the best known arbitrators of labor-management problems in the country.”
I had the good fortune to see Simkin during my National Office mediator internship in 1964. I saw Simkin at daily dispute case briefings where he interacted with staff. As a result, I have a strong and positive impression of him.
After leaving FMCS, Simkin joined the faculty of the Business School at Harvard (1969 to 1973), and he wrote a book in 1971 titled Mediation and the Dynamics of Collective Bargaining. In 1973, he resumed his arbitration practice, and later served a term as President of the National Academy of Arbitrators.
The Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974 directed FMCS to mediate this century-old dispute in Arizona. Bill Simkin, then living in Arizona, accepted Director Bill Usery’s request to mediate the case. After months, if not years, of mediating this complex case, Simkin wrote an extensive report with recommendations, as required by the law, for a Federal District Court. Ultimately, the Court’s decision supported Simkin’s report and recommendations.
Bill Simkin died at age 85 in 1992.