Brian Bemmels

THE EFFECT OF GRIEVANTS' GENDER ON ARBITRATORS' DECISIONS

This study investigates the effect of the gender of grievants on the decisions of arbitrators in 104 discharge cases. The results indicate that, other things equal, women were twice as likely as men to have their grievance sustained; in cases where the grievance was sustained, women were 2.7 times more likely than men to receive a full reinstatement rather than a partial reinstatement; and in cases where suspension was imposed in place of discharge, women received, on average, a suspension 2.1 months shorter than men. These results are consistent with those of studies of the treatment of women in the criminal justice system.

Grievance Procedure Research: A Review and Theoretical Recommendations

This review focuses on the grievance procedure research published in the past decade with specific attention on the application (or lack thereof) of social science theory to grievance research. The review concludes that the theoretical grounding of recent grievance research has improved over the earlier research, but remains quite inadequate. Recommendations on the direction that grievance research should take in the future to further improve on the theoretical content of grievance research are provided. It is argued that theory in grievance research should advance at two levels: the comprehensive systems approach, and the application of specific social science theories to narrower aspects of the grievance process.

Superior and Subordinate Gender and the Acceptance of Superiors as Role Models

This study investigates the criteria for acceptance of an employees superior as a role model, with special attention placed on the effect of superior/subordinate gender. The data for the study were collected from 1579 senior managers from three large Canadian public and quasi-public organizations. While significant gender differences were found, they were relatively unimportant determinants of role model acceptance. By far the most important determinant of subordinate acceptance of a superior as a role model is the subordinates perception of the superiors performance.

Gender Effects in Discharge Arbitration

This study investigates the effect of the gender of grievants and the gender of arbitrators on the decisions in 1,812 discharge cases in the United States from 1976 through 1986. The results indicate that, other things equal, in cases decided by male arbitrators women were 86 percent more likely to have their grievances sustained than were men. Women were also 32 percent more likely than men to receive a full reinstatement rather than a partial reinstatement from male arbitrators. There is little evidence of differential treatment of male and female grievants by female arbitrators, and no evidence that the preferential treatment of women by male arbitrators has declined over time.

Gender Effects in Discipline Arbitration: Evidence from British Columbia

The article deals with a study which presents evidence that arbitrators treat women employees more leniently than men in discipline grievance situations. A discussion is presented about the implica...

Dual commitment: Unique construct or epiphenomenon?

Research on dual commitment has been criticized for failing to establish that dual commitment is a unique construct with significant explanatory power beyond that of employer commitment and union commitment. Using data for a sample of shop stewards, this analysis shows that dual commitment does have unique predictive power for steward grievance processing behaviors and grievance procedure outcomes. Consequently, models relating employer commitment (in unionized settings) or union commitment to behaviors or outcomes will be misspecified if they do not include dual commitment as a unique construct, and statistical estimates of these models will be subject to specification bias.

Manufacturing employees and technological change

Understanding why some workers resist technological change while others accept and facilitate it may be crucial for the survival of manufacturing firms. This study analyzes managers’ perceptions of employees’ reactions to technological changes at 206 Canadian manufacturing plants that made technological changes in their production operations between 1980 and 1988. The results indicate that the presence of a union and a technology clause in the contract significantly increase managers’ perceptions of employee resistance to technological changes. To avoid worker resistance to such changes, the results suggest that management should provide workers with an effective participation in the decision-making process and, if feasible, choose technology that will increase workers’ skill requirements.

The Determinants of Grievance Initiation

The author estimates a behavioral model of grievance initiation with 1990 survey data on 1,205 work groups in Canada. The behaviors of supervisors, employees, and shop stewards—such as the degree to which supervisors emphasized productivity rather than friendly relations with employees—were significantly related to grievance rates, but the determinants of grievance rates varied across grievance issues. The results suggest, for example, that the grievances most likely to be initiated by stewards rather than employees were those involving job descriptions, and that grievances over work rules were the least likely to be settled through informal resolution. The model explains approximately 30% of the total variation in grievance rates across work groups—40% if industry dummy variables are included.

Arbitrator characteristics and arbitrator decisions

This study uses a sample of 459 arbitrators to investigate the effect of arbitrator characteristics on arbitrated decisions in discharge and suspension cases. Little evidence is found of significant relationships between the characteristics of arbitrators and their decisions. The results raise serious doubts about the usefulness of the common labor and management practice of investigating arbitrators’ backgrounds as part of arbitrator selection procedures.

The Roles of Supervisors, Employees, and Stewards in Grievance Initiation:

The authors develop a model of grievance initiation that incorporates the grievance-related behaviors of supervisors, employees, and shop stewards, such as the frequency of employee complaints to stewards and the frequency of steward attempts to resolve potential grievances informally. The model is estimated with 1989 survey data on 231 work groups. The grievance-related behavior patterns of the actors are found to be better predictors of grievance rates than the demographic characteristics, attitudes, personality, or other characteristics of employees, stewards, and the workplace, which have been the focus of previous research on grievance initiation.