Impact of nonunion grievance procedures it has long

Impact of Nonunion Grievance Procedures
It has long been recognized that employees are much less likely to use
grievance procedures in nonunion than union workplaces. However,
employees may be more willing to use nonunion grievance procedures that
have some due process protections. A study of employee usage of
grievance procedures in the telecommunications industry found that rates
of usage varied with the type of procedure. Grievance rates are often
measured as the number of grievances filed annually per 100 workers.
Looking just at grievances about discipline decisions, in unionized
workplaces there was an average grievance rate of 5.3 for each 100
workers, whereas in workplaces with nonunion grievance procedures the
average grievance rate was 2.0 per 100 workers. In the nonunion
workplaces, grievance rates were much higher when the procedure
included nonmanagerial decision makers: 2.9 per 100 workers for
procedures that included peer review and 3.2 per 100 workers for
procedures that included arbitration compared to only 1.3 per 100 workers
for procedures that used only managers as decision makers.
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Critics of nonunion grievance systems argue that an important reason
why employees make less use of such procedures is that they fear
reprisals. A study by David Lewin of the performance of grievance
procedures in three high-technology nonunion firms provides some
support for these claims.
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Lewin found that compared to employees who
did not file grievances, grievance filers (and their supervisors) had lower
performance ratings, lower promotion rates, and higher rates of turnover in
the year after their use of the procedure. Survey responses from two of the
firms indicated that approximately one-third of those who did not file
grievances chose not to do so because they either feared reprisals or
believed there was little chance their appeal would be successful. Thus, it
appears the grievants in these nonunion firms exercised their right to use
these procedures at considerable risk. If this pattern is at all representative
of experiences in other firms, it supports some of the critics’ arguments.
Peer Review and Union Avoidance
Conflict resolution systems in nonunion settings may serve important
functions for both employees and employers. These procedures can be
constructive additions to a modern industrial relations system, but they can
also give management a way to control the work force and avoid a union.
Evidence shows that a number of firms have adopted peer review, a
particular kind of complaint-resolution procedure, because they found that
it was an effective substitute for a union.
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In peer review procedures,
review panels or boards are established to hear employee grievances and
make decisions about their merits.
In a peer review procedure, the majority of the members of the panel are
peer employees of the grievant. This process “creates two important
advantages for the use of peer review panels as union substitution
mechanisms. First, because a majority of the final decision makers in the
procedure are no longer members of management, the panels promise
greater neutrality in decision making. Second, because employees are
involved in the procedure, there is some substitution for the
representational function of the union in the workplace—albeit only a
partial substitute, given that the panel members are not actually presenting
the grievance on behalf of the employee.”