Forthcoming, Industrial Relations IMPROVED METRICS FOR WORKPLACE DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURES:

Many debates surround systems for resolving workplace disputes. In the United States, traditional unionized grievance procedures, emerging nonunion dispute resolution systems, and the court-based system for resolving employment law disputes have all been criticized. What is missing from these debates are rich metrics beyond speed and satisfaction for comparing and evaluating dispute resolutions systems. In this paper, we develop efficiency, equity, and voice as these standards. Unionized, nonunion, and employment law procedures are then qualitatively evaluated against these three metrics. We are grateful to Mike Bognanno and Hoyt Wheeler for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The design and operation of workplace dispute resolution systems are longstanding issues in human resources and industrial relations. But what are the metrics for evaluating workplace dispute resolution systems? For human resource managers to design effective dispute resolutions systems, for union leaders to advocate certain systems, for policymakers to promote or restrict various systems, and for researchers to know what to analyze we must identify the importan