Determinants of Grievance Outcomes: A Case Study

Abstract

Analyzing 1,160 grievance cases from the Canadian federal sector, all of which were resolved short of arbitration, the authors find that the highest percentages of decisions favorable to grievants occur in the early steps of the grievance procedure; the grievances of higher-paid employees are more likely to be granted than are those of lower-paid employees; and grievance outcomes vary depending on the nature of the issue, with grievances over working conditions most likely to be granted and grievances over assignment of work duties least likely to be granted.

Grievance Procedure Research: A Review and Theoretical Recommendations

“…This may lead to other solutions to the delay problem, if in fact it is a problem. Ng and Dastmalchian (1989) and Dastmalchian and Ng (1990) found that the perception of a more favorable industrial relations climate by managers was related to higher grievance settlement rates and settlement at lower levels of the grievance procedure. As with studies correlating climate measures with grievance rates, however, the interpretation of this result is difficult.…”

Measuring Workers’ Satisfaction with Grievance-Handling Procedure: Study of a Power Distribution Major in India

“…Timeliness and impartiality have been considered to be the desirable outcomes of fair and orderly grievance procedures as per the 'due process approach' (Olson-Buchanan and Boswell 2008). The 'speed' literature, as stated by Walker and Hamilton (2011), focuses on the length of time until settlement (Lewin and Peterson 1988;Ponak and Olson 1992;Ponak et al 1996), the 'level' or step at which settlement occurs and settlement rates (Dastmalchian and Ng 1990;Lewin and Peterson 1988;Lewin 1999;Ng and Dastmalchian 1989). Provisions for expedited grievance handling have been found to be related to quicker and higher settlement levels and also to higher arbitration rates by Lewin and Peterson (1988).…”

Why Does Grievance Mediation Resolve Grievances?

“…Is this a realistic assumption? It certainly may have been in the coal mediation experiment (Goldberg and Brett, 1983), but the available grievance processing evidence indicates that the general answer to this question in most unionized workplaces is "no:' Six studies that report grievance processing data from more than 90 bargaining units indicate that only a small fraction of all grievances (generally less than 15 percent, and often as low as two percent) are taken to arbitration in conventional grievance procedures) More to the point, in the three of these six studies which report step-by-step grievance resolution data, most of the grievances which were denied by the employer at the highest prearbitration step were never arbitrated (Gandz, 1982;Gideon and Peterson, 1979;Ng and Dastmalchian, 1989). In addition, ten years of recent arbitration data reported by the American Arbitration Association and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (the two largest arbitrator referral agencies) indicate that awards were issued in less than haft of the combined arbitration cases handled by these two agencies.…”

“…These studies cover a wide range of workplaces: less than two percent of several thousand grievances were arbitrated in several Canadian companies (Gandz, 1982); two percent of 194 grievances were arbitrated in a Pacific Northwest pulp and paper mill (Gideon and Peterson, 1979); an average of seven percent of several thousand grievances were arbitrated across eight bargaining units in the airline, basic steel, chemical• and mility industries (Knight, 1986); across thousands of grievances filed with a total of 79 employers in the retail trade, hospital, school. and steel industries, arbitration rates averaged 9, 12, 12, and 16 percent, respectively (Lewin, 1984; see also Lewin and Peterson, 1988); two percent of 1,174 grievances filed in a Canadian federal government department were arbitrated (Ng and Dastmalchian, 1989); and 10 percent of 957 grievances filed in a utility were arbitrated ('Ibdor and Owen, 1991).…”