How to Investigate a Workplace Grievance: A Union Steward’s Guide

This is the advanced version. If you need what a grievance is, start there. If you need how the paper is built, read that next. This one is the investigation — the work a steward does before the form is worth filing.

1. Interview the member

Let them talk. Then make them slow down. What happened. When. Who was there. What was said. What they want. Ask what will hurt us. They will not volunteer the last-chance agreement or the prior warning. You need it anyway.

2. Identify the issue

Discipline. Pay. Posting. Contracting out. Accommodation. Harassment. Pick the real issue. “Unfair” is not an issue. A denied overtime on Tuesday is.

3. Read the collective agreement

Open the article. Open the grievance procedure. Note the time limit. If management rights is the employer’s whole argument, find the limit. Do not quote from memory.

4–6. Witnesses, documents, timeline

Names, not “someone from HR.” Get short statements while it is fresh. Do not coach. Attach the letter, the schedule, the email, the swipe data if you can get it. Build a dated timeline. If the story only works without dates, it does not work.

7. Ask the employer for relevant information

Comparator discipline. Investigation notes. Policy history. Training records. Video. Write the request. Diary the follow-up. An employer who stonewalls yours while demanding particulars is telling you how they intend to fight. Keep that paper with the grievance. If this started as a workplace investigation, get that package.

8. Determine the redress

Reinstatement. Back pay. The overtime. The posting re-run. The rule withdrawn. “Make whole” is a real ask. “Make it fair” is not. If the member does not want the job back, get that in writing. It changes settlement.