RESEARCH ON UNIONIZED GRIEVANCE PROCEDURES: MANAGEMENT ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS Introduction The purpose of this paper is to review research

on unionized grievance procedures to identify key issues related to labour relations and to provide recommendations for dealing with these issues. The paper involves a review of psychological, sociological, economics, and industrial relations based research recommendations to senior human resource and labor relations executives for dealing with key grievance issues. Research Review and Synthesis Psychological Research - Many studies on grievance procedures have been conducted by psychologists to identify and explain individual differences in grievance behavior. These researchers focused their attention on three major issues: differences in demographic and job-related characteristics of grievance filers and non-filers, personality characteristics of managers and union officials, different types of supervisory behavior as they influence the level of grievance activity. Most of this research focused on identifying demographic and job-related characteristics that differentiate employees who file grievances from those who dont. Psychological research resulted in the findings that younger, male, more educated more skilled employees most likely to file grievances; democratic supervision associated with lower grievance rates; frequency of employee complaints to shop stewards positively related to grievance filing. Sociological Research - This research focused on properties of work groups, organizational structure, technology, and the environment related to grievance procedures. This research concluded that high grievance rates were associated with work groups of semi-skilled employees performing specialized undergoing frequent changes in work methods whereas neither technology nor centralized (or decentralized) organizational decision-making appeared to be significantly related to formal grievance filing. Economics Research - The most important finding of economics-based research on grievance procedures was that the presence of a grievance procedure was associated with lower involuntary employee turnover, longer job tenure, greater human capital, and increased productivity. However, the use of grievance procedures was found to be associated with poorer organizational performance, lower productivity, lower product quality, and higher labor costs. Industrial Relations Research - The main findings of this research focused on grievance procedure effectiveness, post-grievance settlement outcomes, and organizational outcomes. The fairness of grievance systems as perceived by employees was found to be positively associated with use of the system and overall effectiveness ratings. However, following grievance settlement, grievants and their supervisors had poorer performance than non grievants and their supervisors. Recommendations The research resulted in six major findings Senior executives need to conceptualize grievance procedures as they are critical to a high performance work system Management needs to carefully monitor grievance procedures to determine if the procedure is being under- or over-used

Management must determine if grievants and their supervisors have lower job performance than non-grievants after grievance settlement and if so then management must determine if management reprisal is taking place or if grievants and their supervisors are poorer performers Management should periodically assess the whether supervisors deal with employees democratically, extent to which supervisors emphasize getting the job done and supervisors knowledge of collective bargaining agreements HR managers should periodically survey employees to gauge the perceived fairness of grievance handling process HR managers should consider the effects of work force composition and organization of work on grievance activity.