Grievance Law

Grievance Law

The Grievance Process

A grievance can be defined as a claim by an employee that he or she is affected by the misapplication of a company’s policies. Employers implement a grievance process in order to address these grievances. In most cases, the process involves the employee’s union representatives and members of the employer’s management team. First, grievances are presented to the employee’s immediate supervisor who reviews them to determine their validity. Moreover, most grievance processes require that the submission occur within a specific timeframe. At this stage the grievance may be cancelled if the grievance has been resolved or if the supervisor and the union representative determine that the grievance is invalid. Otherwise, the grievance moves to the next step. The next step involves the next level of supervisor. The employee is not involved in the review process but will be represented by the union. Failure to solve the grievance in this step would lead to the third step where the grievance is reviewed by the higher level of company management and potentially a higher-level union representative (Nurse et.al,2006).

If the grievance remains unsolved, then outside parties may intervene, mostly an arbitrator. Senior leaders are however involved in the arbitration process. A well followed grievance process solves employees’ grievances in the most effective way. The grievance process is mostly applied when employees complain about their conditions of employment where there is harassment involved and unfair treatment by officer supervisors (Trudeau, 2002).

Police Brutality

Police misconduct- whether classified as illegal has been highlighted as a major cause of the urban disorders. The relationship between police and minority groups such as students continue to be a volatile fraction point in urban society. The police misconduct can be clearly illustrated by the scenario of summary punishment-the extra implementation of punishment by a policeman. Although the law permits police officers to use force in order to accomplish a lawful arrest, an officer’s action is far beyond the practice in theory. However, the officer will rarely face discipline for the misuse of force (Miethe et.al, 2005). Police officers tend to use force that exceeds the minimum amount necessary, known as police brutality. This force often inflicts harm on the party involved. Although the law permits the use of all necessary means to effect the arrest of fleeing suspects, excessive force leading to death is unacceptable unless the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious injury to the officer or others (Worden, 2015). In such a case where unreasonable excessive force has been used resulting to serious injury, a grievance presented a police officer is valid. This grievance can be presented by filing a civil rights complaint for monetary or injunctive relief. When determining whether a government official engaged in excessive force, the court looks at the circumstances to determine whether the actions where objectively reasonable. Victims of police brutality and their families sometimes get justice. However, the course system is no guarantee of success (Smith et.al, 2003).

References

Miethe, T. D., & Lu, H. (2005). Punishment: A comparative historical perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Nurse, L., & Devonish, D. (2006). Grievance management and its links to workplace justice. Employee Relations29(1), 89-109.

Smith, B. W., & Holmes, M. D. (2003). Community accountability, minority threat, and police brutality: An examination of civil rights criminal complaints. Criminology41(4), 1035-1064.

Trudeau, G. (2002). The internal grievance process and grievance arbitration in Quebec: An illustration of the North-American methods of resolving disputes arising from the application of collective agreements. Managerial Law44(3), 27-46.

Worden, R. E. (2015). The ‘causes’ of police brutality: theory and evidence on police use of force. ER Maguire, & DE Duffee, Criminal Justice Theory: Explaining The Nature and Behavior of Criminal Justice2, 149-204.

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