Option #1: Union Employees and Due Process or Option #2: Union Contracts and M

Option #1: Union Employees and Due Process
Browning Department Stores is a large national retail chain with 2,000 stores located in 25 states in the United States. The corporate office for Browning is based in Phoenix, Arizona, which houses a centralized Human Resources (HR) Department. There are HR managers based in regional areas that handle local employee relations matters. All of the regional stores are unionized. The collective bargaining agreement applies to all locations and contains a formal grievance process.

Bob Johnson has been a stockroom employee at Browning for one year with a clean record and good performance. However, on Monday morning his supervisor, John Mack, noticed that Bob was not himself. His appearance was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot, and his speech was slurred, and there was a suspicious smell on his breath. John immediately took Bob into the back room, questioned him, and determined that Bob was impaired. John suspended Bob without pay pending investigation and sent him home. An hour later, John received a visit from the Union Steward with a grievance on Bob’s behalf. The Union Steward cited supervisor violations due to the lack of union representation in the meeting (Weingarten rights) and noted the inappropriate suspension from work that occurred without pay. As the HR manager for the region, you just received a phone call from the supervisor, John Mack, advising you of the situation. You immediately drive to the store location to investigate and meet with the parties.

Given this scenario, write an analysis that addresses the following:

Describe the purpose of a grievance process and the stages of a typical grievance process that might be found in a collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union.
Analyze how you would approach the situation with the supervisor and the union steward at the initial stage of the grievance process. Identify issues relevant to the situation and provide recommendations for actions that should be taken.
Assuming that the grievance is escalated to the second stage of the grievance process, evaluate: (a) the role of a union-management committee, (b) who would typically be included on the committee, (c) arguments that could be presented from both sides, and (d) options that the committee might discuss to resolve the grievance.
Assuming the options presented are not acceptable to either side, pretend that the grievance is advanced to the third stage of the process. Then, recommend and discuss two strategies that might be considered using alternate dispute-resolution methods.
Requirements:

Write a 4-6 page paper, or about 1200-1800 words, not including the required title and reference pages.
Your paper must be properly cited and formatted according to the CSU Global Writing Center. (Links to an external site.)
This is an individual paper; however, you should reflect on our discussion forums and incorporate ideas from there, as appropriate.
You must support your analysis with at least four to six scholarly references, which can include resources from this course. The CSU Global Library (Links to an external site.) is a good place to find sources as well. You cannot use Wikipedia or any CSU Global assignment. For this assignment, a credible source is defined as:
a scholarly or peer-reviewed journal article,
a government-based website or publication, or
a trade or industry journal article, publication, or website, including those from trade organizations such as SHRM.org and TD.org.
Option #2: Union Contracts and Management Rights
Anchor Products is a well-known company in the food industry. The company has more than 150 locations and manufactures popular dairy, ice cream, and chocolate products for consumers. Each location has a dedicated HR Manager who works closely with the Plant Manager, supervisors, and the corporate HR Department, which is located in Cleveland, Ohio. All of the hourly workers at the plant locations are represented by the United Food Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union. The workers are primarily production, maintenance, and warehouse employees.

Mike Shores has been the Maintenance Supervisor for two years. As former military, he runs a tight ship, and his crew of electricians, mechanics, and welders know that he expects excellence in their work. Mike has been under a great deal of pressure over the past six months from the Operations Manager to service machinery and to speed up production output.

Under stress, Mike has been unhappy with the performance of his crew and has let them know it, thereby causing a great deal of ongoing conflict. Yesterday, the Union Steward presented Mike with a grievance stating that he violated terms and conditions outlined in the collective bargaining agreement. Specifically, the grievance accuses Mike of performing bargaining unit work on the machines, contracting with outside subcontractors, and bypassing seniority requirements for overtime assignments. Today, Mike is standing in the doorway to your office with the grievance in hand asking for your support to deny the grievance based on the management rights clause in the contract.

Given this scenario, write an analysis that addresses the following:

Describe the purpose of a grievance process and the stages of a typical grievance process that might be found in a collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union.
Analyze how you would approach the situation with the supervisor and the Union Steward at the initial stage of the grievance process. Identify two issues relevant to the situation and provide two recommendations for actions that should be taken.
Assuming that the grievance is escalated to the second stage of the grievance process, evaluate: (a) the role of a union-management committee, (b) who would typically be included on the committee, (c) two arguments that could be presented by the union and two arguments that could be presented by the company, and (d) two options that the committee might discuss to resolve the grievance.
Assuming the options presented are not acceptable to either side, pretend that the grievance is advanced to the third stage of the process. Then, recommend and discuss two strategies that might be considered using alternate dispute-resolution methods.
Requirements:

Write a 4-6 page paper, or about 1200-1800 words, not including the required title and reference pages.
Your paper must be properly cited and formatted according to CSU Global Writing Center. (Links to an external site.)
This is an individual paper; however, you should reflect on our discussion forums and incorporate ideas from there, as appropriate.
You must support your analysis with at least four to six scholarly references, which can include resources from this course. The CSU Global Library (Links to an external site.) is a good place to find sources. For this assignment, a credible source is defined as:
a scholarly or peer-reviewed journal article,
a government-based website or publication, or
a trade or industry journal article, publication, or website, including those from trade organizations such as SHRM.org and TD.org.