Workplace Grievance Procedures

Résumé du livre

Over the last fifty years, nonunion employers have increasingly adopted formal grievance procedures, which allow employees to challenge a company decision or policy and appeal manager adjudications of the challenge. Employers have adopted these procedures to minimize liability and ensure employee productivity. But while these procedures signal that employees are treated fairly, the psychological theory of escalation of commitment suggests that complaint-and-appeals procedures exacerbate workplace conflict. This Note presents this unintended consequence of formal grievance procedures and discusses its implications for workplace dispute resolution. Part I explains the adoption of formal grievance procedures as employer efforts to signal that employees are treated fairly. Part II applies the psychological theory of escalation to grievance procedures, and Part III argues that escalation undermines the purpose of formal grievance procedures and proposes mediation as an escalation-reducing alternative.