Have the speed, informality, and low cost of the grievance and arbitration system deteriorated? Has the system become too adversarial? Has it lost its problem-solving character? This book examines the nature and degree of change in workplace dispute resolution in the context of ongoing changes in work and in labor relations.The volume begins with an editors' introduction that provides context and offers a political perspective on the current state of dispute resolution in the workplace. The chapters that follow contain critiques of the existing legal framework surrounding mandatory arbitration in the nonunion sector and a review of the empirical literature on nonunion dispute resolution. Employment Dispute Resolution and Worker Rights in the Changing Workplace includes sections on grievance mediation, the status of the grievance procedure in workplaces with extensive worker and/or union participation in decision making, and high-performance workplaces. The study concludes with trends in dispute resolution in the public sector and with the alternative dispute resolution system commonly practiced in the unionized construction industry.

This volume contains a selection of papers which go back to a conference on new employment actors, held at the University of Sydney in November 2006. The book contends that employment relations must be broadened to examine the new actors and processes and the role these play in the regulation and experience of work. It demonstrates this in the context of recent developments in Australia. In addition, the contributions evaluate the extent to which new employment actors either reinforce or replace the activities of the more established trade union, management, and state-based actors. It is argued that an inclusion of these new actors and processes is a more comprehensive way of understanding and explaining industrial society in the 21st century.

"Managing Workplace Conflict critically analyses Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Australian workplaces. It includes coverage of: various ADR techniques and the roles played by ADR practitioners in workplace conflict; the need for workplace grievance policies and the forms these can take; the suitability of ADR for various types of disputes; the effects of the Work Choices Act 2005 (Cth) on dispute resolution; and three case studies where ADR was utilised in workplace conflict and the experiences of both the human resource consultant and their clients. Managing Workplace Conflict is written against the background of a rapidly changing Australian labour market. It argues that ADR in the Australian workplace needs to be conducted with an understanding of the changed industrial relations environment and the power differences between key workplace stakeholders, as well as commitment to ethical practice and workplace justice. It presents the key concepts central to the practice of ADR in Australia and provides a practical, useable reference book for both the professional and the student." -- back cover

An extension of Labor Arbitration: An Annotated Bibliography, this volume intends to provide a larger sense of history, of institutional development, and of the abiding questions that have been raised in and about labor arbitration. The editors focus on substantial professional and academic studies of labor arbitration in the United States and Canada, drawing material from books, monographs, analytical articles in professional and academic journals, and selections from the proceedings of the meetings of academic and professional societies. In response to the changing demands made upon arbitrators, the editors have extended their coverage to include alternative dispute resolution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. A large section of the book deals with employment arbitration and matters such as wrongful discharge. Coverage of arbitration outside North America is also expanded in the current volume, which is based upon computer searches of the most widely used data bases and on cover-to-cover searches of the twenty leading journals in the field.

New ways of managing conflict are important features of work & employment in organizations. World's leading scholars examine range of innovative alternative dispute resolution practices, drawing on international research, scholarship, covering case studies of major exemplars & developments in different parts of global economy. Aust & NZ content.

Dispute System Design walks readers through the art of successfully designing a system for preventing, managing, and resolving conflicts and legally-framed disputes. Drawing on decades of expertise as instructors and consultants, the authors show how dispute systems design can be used within all types of organizations, including business firms, nonprofit organizations, and international and transnational bodies. This book has two parts: the first teaches readers the foundations of Dispute System Design (DSD), describing bedrock concepts, and case chapters exploring DSD across a range of experiences, including public and community justice, conflict within and beyond organizations, international and comparative systems, and multi-jurisdictional and complex systems. This book is intended for anyone who is interested in the theory or practice of DSD, who uses or wants to understand mediation, arbitration, court trial, or other dispute resolution processes, or who designs or improves existing processes and systems.

Comprising five thematic sections, this volume provides a critical, international and interdisciplinary exploration of employment relations. It examines the major subjects and emerging areas within the field, including essays on institutional theory, voice, new actors, precarious work and employment. Led by a well-respected team of editors, the contributors examine current knowledge and debates within each topic, offering cutting-edge analysis and reflection. The Routledge Companion to Employment Relations is an extensive reference work that offers students and researchers an introduction to current scholarship in the longstanding discipline of employment relations. It will be an essential addition to library collections in business and management, law, economics, sociology and political economy.

Justice in the U.S. nonunion workplace operates within the tenets of employment-at-will. Based on the late nineteenth century Woods rule, this concept led courts to recognize the right of an employer to fire a worker at any time, for any reason. Fortunately for nonunion workers, a workplace justice system has evolved that provides them some recourse when they have been let go without just cause. This is a complex and not widely understood system, but now there is a book that clarifies its workings and compares its effectiveness and fairness to a variety of other workplace justice systems. [publisher web site].