It is important for the health of the relationship between an employer and its recognised trade union that an effective agreed procedure should be available to resolve disputes between them. Companies may wish to obtain advice from their Association on the content of such a procedure.
Commonly, dispute resolution procedures provide for collective grievances to be raised in writing to or by a specified level of management, and then dealt with by negotiation. It may also be advisable to include an external stage to cover the possibility that the dispute cannot be resolved internally. This might involve a meeting between a representative of the employer's Association and a full-time official of the union, or some form of mediation or arbitration by a third party such as the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. There could even be provision for an unresolved dispute to be referred to compulsory arbitration, the results of which would be binding on both parties.
It is advisable for any dispute resolution procedure to include a 'peace clause'. This requires the union not to resort to industrial action before the procedure is exhausted. For its part, the company agrees not to implement any decision that is being challenged until the procedure has run its course.
It is usually appropriate for individual employees' grievances to be dealt with through the company's grievance procedure. The handling of individual grievances is discussed elsewhere ( Discipline ). It could be useful, however, to provide that individual grievances that raise issues common to many employees will be dealt with through the dispute resolution procedure.