The Effects of Grievance Activity on Productivity

This study develops and tests a production function that includes a plant's grievance filing rate as a determinant of productivity. Application of that function to data on nine unionized paper mills for 1976–82 shows that the more grievances that were filed in a mill, the lower that mill's productivity. Although this effect produced only small percentage changes in the productivity of these mills, the author argues that these changes could result in much larger percentage changes in the mills' operating profits. Finally, a comparison between the productivity of the nine union mills and that of a nonunion mill that has no grievance procedure shows that the nonunion mill has significantly lower productivity.