Grievance Checklist and Deadline Tracker

1. Intake

Fill this in at the first conversation. Dates decide grievances; get them first.

Member

Phone and personal email

Department, classification, supervisor

Steward, and date of intake

Date of the incident

Date the member learned of it

2. The six Ws

What happened

Who was involved

Where, and on what shift

Witnesses and how to reach them

Why it violates the agreement

3. The case

Article(s) and section(s) violated

Type of grievance

Which step it enters at, under your agreement

Remedy requested

Documents and records to preserve

Information requested from the employer, and date

4. Before you file

Member told to keep working unless the order is illegal or unsafeWork now, grieve later. A safety refusal has its own procedure; invoke it by name. Checked whether this is also a safety, harassment, human rights or accommodation matter with its own clock Read the grievance article: how many days, calendar or working, counted from the event or from knowledge Checked which step this grievance enters atSome agreements send discipline, discharge, group or policy grievances straight to a later step. Informal meeting held, and any settlement or extension put in writing Member's written consent obtained before handling any medical information If the deadline is close, file now and keep investigating Copy of the filed grievance kept, with the date it was received

5. The clocks

One line per stage. Write the due date the day the previous stage ends, not the day you remember.

StageDue dateFiled or appealed onEmployer's answer due / received

Informal

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Arbitration notice

Extensions agreed, in writing, to what date

If the employer misses its deadline

6. Keeping the member informed

Member told in writing where the grievance stands after each stage Any decision to settle, drop or not arbitrate explained to the member in writing, with the date

Notes and decisions

Why the dates come first

A grievance filed a day late can be dismissed without the merits being heard, and the clock usually runs from the event or from when the member should have known, not from the day the steward hears about it. That is why this form asks for the incident date and the knowledge date before anything else, and why section 5 gives every stage its own due date, filed-on date and employer-answer date. The deadlines in real agreements run from 10 days to 35 days for the first step; the comparison is in the clocks section of the procedure guide.

This checklist is general information, not legal advice. Your collective agreement and your union's advice govern the steps and deadlines that apply. Sources: SEIU Local 521, Steward Guide to Starting Grievances (intake form); PSAC, A Steward's Guide to Grievance Handling (grievance file checklist); Teamsters, The Grievance Procedure: Making It Work for Us. © 2026 AviChat AI Inc. Free to copy and share within your union. avichat.ca/resources/bulletin/grievance-checklist