Let's begin with a definition of a grievance. Grievances are complaints concerning conditions of employment and allegations that the labor agreement has been violated or incorrectly administered. Grievances are complaints in the following categories:qBy an employee on that employee's employment matters. qBy a union on an employees' employment matters. qBy an employee, union, or agency management claiming that: The labor agreement has not been correctly interpreted or has been violated. A law, rule, or regulation affecting conditions of employment has been violated or that an error in interpretation or application of a law, rule, or regulation has occurred. Conditions of employment include personnel policies, practices, and general working conditions. A grievance would be based on a claim that some action or inaction by management violates a rule, regulation, or practice contained in the labor agreement I will be discussing a situation in which a fellow employee filed a grievance against her supervisor. This fellow employee who we will call "Maria" felt that the supervisor was violating her rights. Maria felt that the work environment was a hostile one. Therefore, she set in action the Grievance procedure. The purposes of the procedure are:qTo settle disputes arising during the life of the agreementqTo establish an orderly method for handling disputesqTo provide for the union's role in processing the grievance of a single employeeqTo allow either side to appeal the results of grievance negotiation step by step until a final and binding decision is reached. (Mills 1994)Since, I do not know the complete details of the grievance outcome, I will discuss the proper steps for the union and the management to follow. A typical grievance procedure is normally three steps however a formal grievance procedure is five steps. The following shows a typical three-step grievance procedure:ArbitratorPresident International RepresentativeVP Labor...
