Handling Grievances in the Workplace

About

As a union representative, you will often play the role of problem solver. At times, you may need to negotiate productive outcomes at the workplace level and to support members with grievances in the workplace.

This course will help you develop your problem-solving and analytical skills. You will learn skills and frameworks to build your capacity to communicate around and work through grievance issues with workers and employers.

This course will reinforce understanding of procedural fairness and participants will learn strategies to problem solve and interpret relevant clauses in awards and agreements.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants should be able to:

• Identify where handling grievances fits in the context of union values
• Identify responsibilities, power and interests of the employer and employee in grievance handling process
• Articulate and enforce the concepts of natural justice and procedural fairness
• Demonstrate listening and questioning skills to interview members 
• Use the problem-solving framework to develop a union case
• Identify strategies to make grievances part of collectively building the union at the workplace
• Prepare a strategy to inform members of their rights

Content

Grievance-handling experiences

Link experiences to new knowledge in addressing workplace grievances
Responsibilities in the context of grievance handling
Identify how and where grievance handling fits in the context of union values

Rights and responsibilities

Employer and employee responsibilities under common law contract of employment
Sources of workers’ rights
Articulate the concepts of natural justice and procedural fairness

Communications and problem solving

Demonstrate effective listening & questioning skills when interviewing a member
Confidently conduct an interview to determine the facts of the case
Demonstrate and practice effective listening & questioning skills to interview members
Use the problem-solving framework to develop the union case

Use and analyse industrial instruments for grievance handling

Analyse a case study
Use frameworks to determine the facts, issues, impacts options and decide on action

Taking it back to the workplace

Identify strategies to make grievances part of building the union at the workplace
Identify when and how collective support can be achieved for individual matters

Delivery Style

This course will rely heavily on teacher-led facilitated discussion, activities, small group work and use of case studies.

Prerequisite

None

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