Looking Fair or Being Fair: Remedial Voice Procedures in Nonunion Workplaces

Abstract

We analyze the correlates and characteristics of grievance procedures covering nonunion employees in 19.5 private firms. These remedial voice procedures tend to exist in larger and completely nonunion firms that place a high value on their human resources. Although these procedures guarantee employees the right to Jile grievances and contain considerable procedural formality, most of them give management the lion S share ofprocess control and decision control over employee complaints.

Institutional Pressures, Human Resource Strategies, and the Rise of Nonunion Dispute Resolution Procedures

“…However, evidence is growing of an expansion in recent decades of both the numbers and complexity of dispute resolution procedures in nonunion workplaces (Westin and Felieu 1988;McCabe 1988;Ewing 1989;Feuille and Delaney 1992;Feuille and Chachere 1995). This development assumes particular importance given that we are in a period of declining union representation coverage and the growth of new models of the employment relationship dominated by managerial human resource strategies and individualized employment rights.…”

“…In a study based on a 1991 survey of alumni of a masters program in human resources and industrial relations, Feuille and Chachere (1995) found that only about 2% of organizations used arbitration in nonunion grievance procedures. This proportion is particularly low given that their sample likely included a relatively high proportion of companies with more professionalized and sophisticated management of human resources.…”

Employment dispute resolution: The case for mediation

“…Feuille and Chachere (1995) found that plans had limits on due process. Only 55 of 110 employers allowed employees to be accompanied by a representative, and 11 of 107 employers allowed the final decisions on grievances by independent decision making by outside arbitrators.…”

Dismissal Disputes and the Incentives to Bargain: Estimates of the Contract Zone

“…The privatization of the dispute resolution process has reignited normative debates about workplace fairness, job property rights, industrial relations stability, and the role of both the judiciary and government legislatures in subsidizing the cost of redressing any perceived imbalances in these matters (Fisher 1994;Feuille and Chachere 1995;Frantz 1997;Stone 1999;Zack 1999). Social justice theories stress fundamental power asymmetries between employees and employers and therefore promote the redistributive properties of employment protection rules (büchtemann 1993).…”