Grievance and Disputes

The Employment Relations Act sets up dispute resolution processes that the parties to an employment agreement must follow when a dispute or a grievance arises. These processes are informal, flexible, and designed to be as non-legalistic as possible. Both disputes and grievances can be defined as ‘employment relationship problems’ under the Act. They must be dealt with in accordance with the dispute resolution mechanisms set out by the Act.

These dispute resolution processes apply to all employment relationship problems, whether they arise:

• during bargaining
• after bargaining, in relation to applying the terms of the employment agreement
• in terms of a personal grievance that has arisen within the working relationship and that the parties have not been able to resolve.

A dispute concerns the interpretation or application of the provisions of the employment agreement between the parties. The word dispute has a specific statutory meaning but we are using it to refer to the range of different problems that might arise between the parties to an employment relationship.

A personal grievance relates to something that has arisen within the employment relationship but does not spring from the agreement itself. Grievances tend to be separate from the agreement and refer to an employer’s action or omission that affects an employee.