The union grievance procedure, explained step by step

A member is told to file a grievance and asks what happens next. In a typical procedure the answer is several meetings, a deadline between each one and, if it goes all the way, more than a year before an arbitrator reads the same clause everyone could have read on day one.

This guide is for stewards and members who want the whole map: every stage, who is in the room, how a grievance moves up, what arbitration involves, and the method stewards use at each step. It covers Canada and the United States and labels which rules belong to which. It is general information, not legal advice. Your collective agreement sets the steps and deadlines that apply to you.

What a grievance procedure is, and which system yours sits in

A grievance procedure is the part of a collective agreement that says how a dispute about the agreement gets settled during the life of the agreement: a sequence of meetings and, at the end, a decision by someone neither side controls. A right the agreement gives you is only as good as the procedure that enforces it. The procedure is also one of the oldest things in a contract; the first flight attendant agreement, in 1946, already had one.

What counts as a grievance is set by the agreement's own definition. The Teamsters' grievance guide notes that one contract may define it narrowly, as "a dispute between the union and management over the application and/or interpretation of the agreement", and another broadly, as "any dispute or difference arising between an employee and management" (Teamsters, The Grievance Procedure: Making It Work for Us, p. 5). Agreements commonly let you grieve a violation of the contract, its side letters and memoranda, a past arbitration award and an established past practice. Whether a law or an employer policy can be grieved depends on the agreement and the statute that covers you. What you cannot grieve is unfairness that breaks no rule. PSAC's steward guide tells stewards to "just say no, gently" in those cases, and to help the member find another route (PSAC, A Steward's Guide to Grievance Handling, ch. 4).

One rule sits over the whole procedure: work now, grieve later. Filing a grievance does not suspend the order you are grieving. Refuse it and you can be disciplined for the refusal even if you were right about the contract. The exceptions are orders that are illegal or unsafe, and a safety refusal has its own statutory procedure in every jurisdiction covered here; invoke it by name and call the union at once (CUPE Steward Handbook, p. 23).

The steps come from your agreement. The law that sits under them depends on the employer, the work, and, in Canada, whether the workplace is federally or provincially regulated.

Two notes for aviation readers. In the United States, airline and rail workers are not under the National Labor Relations Act at all; their grievance procedure runs under the Railway Labor Act, and the rights many union guides describe as "Weingarten rights" come from the agreement rather than that case. In Canada, air transportation is a federal undertaking, so an airline union's procedure is governed by the Canada Labour Code, not provincial law. Contracted ground services at airports are sometimes provincial, and the line is litigated. Transportation is the largest federally regulated sector in the country: 37% of the one million employees under federal jurisdiction (ESDC, The Labour Program in Brief, 2025).

The grievance procedure steps, from the informal discussion to arbitration

Most grievance procedures follow a common pattern. The Teamsters guide puts it at "typically three steps" plus arbitration; the US Postal Service procedure has four; a CUPE local at a university has four and then arbitration. The numbers differ. The logic does not: at each stage a more senior person on each side looks at the same question, and the clock runs between stages.

We use "Step 1, 2, 3" here. Your agreement may say "Level" or "Stage", and many require a "complaint stage" or informal discussion before Step 1 that still carries a deadline.

How a grievance moves: the common pattern

1. Informal discussionMember, steward, supervisorFiling clock keeps running
2. Step 1Written grievance to the supervisorDeadline to file
3. Step 2Chief steward and higher managementDeadline to appeal; deadline to answer
4. Step 3Union staff or officers and senior management, or a joint panelDeadline to appeal; deadline to answer
5. ArbitrationA neutral the parties choseDeadline to give notice

If management misses its deadline to answer, read your clause: many agreements treat silence as a denial and start your clock to appeal from the day the answer was due.

Informal discussion

Who is in the room

The member, the steward and the immediate supervisor.

What is decided

Whether the problem can be settled before it becomes a written grievance. Many agreements require this conversation, and SEIU Local 521's guide tells stewards to name it for what it is: "This will be our informal attempt to resolve this as outlined in our union contract's grievance procedure" (SEIU 521, Steward Guide to Starting Grievances).

The clock

The filing deadline usually keeps running while you talk. Unless your agreement says otherwise, the informal stage does not pause it.

Walk out with

Any settlement or extension in writing. The United Electrical Workers' steward guide puts the rule in capitals, "GET IT IN WRITING", and warns that supervisors later deny verbal extensions (UE, Step One of the Grievance Procedure). Where the agreement allows it, mark a settlement "without prejudice" so it does not become a precedent you did not intend.

Step 1: the written grievance

Who is in the room

The steward, the grievor and the supervisor or first-line manager; in the Canadian federal public service the employee presents the grievance with union support.

What is decided

The employer's first formal answer.

The clock

This is the deadline that ends more grievances than any other. The US Postal Service procedure requires the grievance to be raised "within 14 days of when the employee or the union first learned, or may reasonably have been expected to learn, of the issue" (APWU).

Walk out with

A filed grievance. The written grievance itself is short, and what goes in it, how to count the days and what to do if a deadline is missed are covered in How to file a grievance (and the deadlines that matter). Two hub-level points: cite every provision that might apply, because adding one later is hard, and do not wait for the investigation to finish. The Teamsters guide puts it plainly: "an investigation does not have to be completed before a grievance is filed" (p. 23). File inside the deadline and keep investigating.

Step 2: higher management

Who is in the room

The chief steward or business agent, the grievor and a department head, plant manager or labour relations representative. In the Teamsters model, "a representative of the union, the grievant, and a representative of worksite management meet to try to resolve the grievance" (p. 9).

What is decided

Whether the employer's position survives a second look by someone who did not make the original decision.

The clock

A deadline to appeal from the Step 1 answer, and a deadline for the employer's Step 2 answer.

Walk out with

The employer's written answer and, if you asked for records, a written response to the request. In the US private sector the employer must give the union information that is relevant to processing a grievance; refusing or stalling is itself an unfair labour practice (NLRB v. Acme Industrial Co., 385 U.S. 432 (1967)), and US federal agencies have a similar statutory duty. In Canada, what the employer must disclose during the internal steps varies by statute, sector and agreement, and an enforceable order to produce documents usually comes once an arbitrator is appointed. Either way, UE's advice holds: put the request in writing and keep a copy.

Step 3: the union's staff and senior management

Who is in the room

A union staff representative, national representative or local officers, and senior management or labour relations. Some agreements use a joint grievance panel of union and company representatives at this stage instead of a meeting; check whether the panel's decision is final under your agreement.

What is decided

The last chance to settle before the cost and delay of arbitration, and the stage at which the union decides whether the case is worth taking further. Some agreements let serious cases enter here directly. CUPE 3905's procedure sends oral and written warnings straight to Step 3, and discharge or suspension straight to Step 4 (CUPE 3905).

The clock

A deadline to appeal to Step 3, a deadline for the employer's answer, and then a deadline to give notice of arbitration.

Arbitration

Who decides

A neutral arbitrator or a three-person board chosen under the agreement; in the US airline industry, a System Board of Adjustment with a neutral member to break ties.

Who decides to go

The union, not the grievor. PSAC describes the review: grievances at the final step "are referred to PSAC for review. The union will then decide whether or not it will present the grievance for arbitration" (ch. 7).

The clock

A deadline to give written notice of arbitration, which is the deadline unions miss most expensively. The hearing itself is described in the arbitration section below.

When management does not answer. Agreements handle a missed employer response in one of three ways, and the difference decides the case. Some say that silence past the due date is a denial and start the union's clock to appeal from the day the answer was due. Some start the clock only when an answer arrives. A few deem an unanswered grievance granted. PSAC's guide states the first pattern: "no answer is an answer, it means they are denying your grievance and that means you can take it to the next step" (ch. 7). Read your clause before you rely on it, and never wait past management's deadline without either moving the grievance up or getting an extension in writing.

Individual, group, policy and employer grievances, and where each one enters

An individual grievance is one worker's claim about discipline, pay, scheduling, leave, seniority or classification. A group grievance is the same claim for several identified workers affected the same way. A policy grievance, also called a union grievance, is the union's own claim about how the agreement is being applied across the unit, filed without naming one grievor; many US agreements call it a union or class grievance. Employers can grieve too, usually over the union's or the members' conduct under the agreement.

The categories are rarer than the labels suggest. Of the 1,374 grievances referred to Canada's federal public sector labour board in 2024–25, 1,335 were individual, 29 were policy and 10 were group (FPSLREB Annual Report 2024–2025).

Where a grievance enters the procedure depends on the agreement. CUPE 3905's procedure is a clear example: a grievance affecting more than two employees in one department starts at Step 2; a grievance against the administration or across departments starts at Step 3; oral and written warnings start at Step 3; discharge or suspension goes directly to Step 4. Skipping a step without that kind of language is a mistake the employer will raise at arbitration. PSAC also notes a use of the policy grievance that stewards forget: where members whose rights were clearly violated are afraid to come forward, "you may be able to file a grievance on behalf of the union even if the worker does not want to participate" (ch. 4), which also protects the union against the argument that it let the violation stand. The limit is that a policy grievance challenges how the agreement is being applied in general. It is not a way to claim one person's remedy without them, and arbitrators do dismiss policy grievances that are really an individual claim in disguise.

One more distinction that moves deadlines: a continuing violation, like a recurring pay error, usually restarts the clock each time it recurs; a one-time act, like a discipline letter, does not.

Who owns the grievance, and what the union owes you

The union owns the grievance. It decides whether to file, whether to move it up and whether to arbitrate. CUPE's handbook says so in those words (p. 25), and the Ontario Labour Relations Board explains to members that the choice to arbitrate belongs to the union, not the grievor (OLRB Information Bulletin No. 12). In US private-sector labour law the Supreme Court settled the point in 1967: an employee does not have "an absolute right to have his grievance taken to arbitration" (Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171).

What the member is owed in return is fair representation. The Canadian statutes use nearly identical words, and the US standard is the same three: the union "shall not act in a manner that is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith" in representing employees in the unit (Canada Labour Code, s. 37; Ontario Labour Relations Act, s. 74; Vaca v. Sipes for the US private sector). Where the duty is enforced, and by when, differs by jurisdiction. The OLRB explains "arbitrary" as conduct that is "superficial, capricious, indifferent, or in reckless disregard" of a member's interests. A union can decline a weak grievance; it cannot decline one without looking at it.

A fair-representation complaint is not an appeal of the grievance. The board asks how the union made its decision, not whether the grievance should have won, and each board has its own deadline:

• Canada, federally regulated: a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board "not later than ninety days" after the member knew, or ought to have known, of the union's action (Canada Labour Code, s. 97(2)).
• US, private sector: six months, whether as an unfair labour practice charge at the NLRB or a lawsuit against the union and employer (DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151 (1983)).
• Ontario: no fixed day-count in the Act, but the Board dismisses complaints brought after an unexplained delay, so file promptly. The OLRB received 329 fair-representation applications in 2024–25 (OLRB Annual Report 2024–2025).
• Quebec: the union must not act "in bad faith or in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner or show serious negligence" (Labour Code, art. 47.2). A dismissed or disciplined member who believes it did can complain to the Tribunal administratif du travail within six months of learning of the union's conduct, and if the complaint succeeds the Tribunal can send the claim to an arbitrator at the union's expense (TAT; Québec.ca).

There are exceptions to union ownership. In the Canadian federal public service an employee may refer a grievance about termination, demotion, suspension or a financial penalty to adjudication without the union, though a grievance about the agreement itself needs the union's approval and representation (FPSLRA, s. 209). In US rail, an individual employee can take an unresolved claim to the Adjustment Board. And US federal employees face the opposite problem: for a removal, a long suspension, a demotion or a discrimination claim, filing a written grievance is a choice of forum that rules out the statutory appeal, and the first filing decides it (5 U.S.C. § 7121(d)–(e)). A steward in that sector should never say "file the grievance right away" to a fired member without that conversation.

Representation at investigatory meetings. In the US private sector, a union-represented employee who reasonably believes an investigatory interview could lead to discipline may ask for a union representative, and the employer must then allow it, delay the interview or drop it. You have to ask; the employer is not required to tell you (NLRB, Weingarten Rights). US federal employees have the same right by statute, and their agency must tell them about it every year (5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(2)(B) and (a)(3)). For US airline and rail workers the right is generally set by the agreement. In Canada there is no general statutory equivalent; the right comes from the collective agreement, and many agreements grant it in terms, as the Canadian federal public service agreement does for disciplinary hearings (PA agreement, cl. 17.02). Read yours before you need it.

Keeping the member informed. The Teamsters guide treats this as the union's own protection as much as the member's: tell the grievor in writing where the grievance is, what management answered, and any decision to drop, settle or not arbitrate, because written notice also "starts the clock" on the member's time to complain about the union (p. 24). It is good practice in every jurisdiction, and in some agreements it is a rule.

The clocks: a reference table, and why "days" is the most dangerous word in the agreement

Every stage has a deadline, counted from the event or from when the member knew or reasonably should have known. The number is only half the clause. Whether "days" means calendar days or working days moves a deadline by a week, and a missed deadline can end the grievance before anyone argues it. SEIU's guide says it plainly: miss a step's time limit "without proper cause" and "you could lose the grievance on a technicality."

Two of those rows describe the same federal public servant. The Regulations give 35 days; the PA group's agreement gives 25 days excluding weekends and holidays. If you are covered by an agreement, work to its clock, and treat the statutory figure as the backstop, not the rule.

How long you have to file: six examples

• UFCW Local 951 guide (typical)10 days
• US Postal Service / APWU14 days
• UPS / Teamsters, Western Region20 calendar days
• Canadian federal public service (PA agreement)25 working days
• University of Saskatchewan / CUPE 197530 calendar days
• Federal public service Regulations (default)35 days

010203040 days

Extensions exist, and they are narrow. The parties can always agree to one in writing; PSAC's guide requires "a strong rationale" and the signatures of both union and employer. Some statutes also let an arbitrator extend a missed internal deadline: Ontario's Act, if there are reasonable grounds and the other side is not substantially prejudiced, unless the agreement opts out of that subsection (LRA s. 48(16)); the Canada Labour Code, for federally regulated workplaces, on the same test (s. 60(1.1)); and the federal public service Regulations, by agreement or by the Board "in the interest of fairness" (s. 61). None of these is a right to be late. They are requests, made after the employer has objected, that an arbitrator can refuse. Counting rules, the working-day arithmetic and what to do when a deadline has already passed are in the filing guide.

What arbitration actually looks like, and how long it takes

Arbitration is a hearing, usually around a conference table, before a neutral the parties chose. Witnesses are sworn, documents are entered, each side questions the other's witnesses, and the parties often file written briefs afterwards. In every system covered here the award is final and binding, subject to limited court review. Canada's federal Code says an award "is final and shall not be questioned or reviewed in any court" (Canada Labour Code, s. 58), and Quebec's government says the same: an arbitral award cannot be appealed. In practice "final" means there is no appeal on the merits. A court can still review an award on narrow grounds, and it rarely does.

How long it takes, in US cases. The US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service tracks every case that uses its arbitrator panels. In fiscal 2025 the averages were 113 days from the grievance being filed to the request for a panel, about 20 days for the panel to be issued, 55 days from the panel being sent to an arbitrator being appointed, 155 days from appointment to hearing, and 90 days from hearing to award (FMCS, Arbitration Statistics FY2025: Time Between Milestones). That is 320 days from the panel request to the award, and about 433 days, roughly 14 months, from the grievance itself. Multi-day hearings scheduled months apart run longer. The FMCS roster has about 1,000 arbitrators, a panel request costs $100 online, and an arbitrator is expected to issue the award within 60 days after the record closes (FMCS, The Arbitration Program, 2026). Canada's federal public sector board reports a different measure of the same problem: the average age of its open files fell from 44 months to 34 in 2024–25, which is still nearly three years (FPSLREB Annual Report 2024–2025).

From grievance to award: FMCS cases, fiscal 2025 (average days)

• Grievance filed to arbitrator's award≈433 days 113 · 20 · 55 · 155 · 90

• Filed to panel request, 113
• Panel issued, about 20
• Panel sent to arbitrator appointed, 55
• Appointed to hearing, 155
• Hearing to award, 90

View as table

Interval	Average days
Grievance filed to panel request	113.4
Panel request to panel sent (derived)	≈20
Panel sent to arbitrator appointed	55.2
Arbitrator appointed to hearing	154.6
Hearing to award	90.2
Panel request to award (as reported)	320.2

Who pays. The parties usually split the arbitrator's fee and expenses. The Teamsters guide puts arbitrators at "$500 to $1,000 per day" for hearing and writing time, "normally divided equally between the union and management" (p. 19); fees have risen since that guide was written, and some agreements shift costs to the losing party.

Who has to prove what. In a discipline case the employer goes first and carries the burden, because it is the employer's action being tested against the "just cause" standard. In a contract-interpretation case the burden "is almost always on the union" (Teamsters, p. 19).

What the arbitrator reads first. The language. "First and foremost the arbitrator tries to determine what the contract actually says rather than what he or she thinks is a fair solution to the dispute. Sometimes unions lose cases because of contract language, even though what management did is not fair or logical" (Teamsters, p. 19). Where the language is unclear, the arbitrator looks at what the parties intended in bargaining, how similar language has been read before, and past practice.

Of the labour relations files Canada's federal public sector board closed in 2024–25, 71.1% were withdrawn before a decision, nearly half of them because the parties settled (FPSLREB Annual Report 2024–2025). A grievance that reaches a hearing is the exception, which is one more reason to build the file properly at Step 1.

The 5 steps of grievance handling: listen, test, investigate, write, present

Many steward-training materials describe the same sequence. The Boilermakers list it as listen carefully to the facts from the worker, test for a grievance, investigate thoroughly, write the grievance, and present it "in a firm but polite manner" (Boilermakers, Five Steps to Winning Grievances), and AFSCME's steward course is titled "Navigating the 5 Steps of Grievance Handling" (AFSCME). This is what union courses mean by "the five steps".

Track every date. The one tool that prevents most procedural losses is a single sheet with the incident date, the knowledge date, the provision, the remedy, each stage's due date, each employer response date, any extension in writing, and the next step's deadline. We built one from the SEIU intake form and PSAC's file checklist, as a web form, a fillable PDF and a two-page printable. Stewards building a case for better contract access in their local can start with the steward's advocacy kit.

Every stage comes back to the same question: what does the agreement say?

At the informal meeting the steward cites the clause. At Step 1 the grievance names it. At Step 3 the union's representative argues it. At arbitration it is the first thing the arbitrator reads. The whole procedure is a sequence of people reading the same language more carefully each time, and the side that finds the right clause fastest usually controls the conversation.

Finding it fast is a different job from deciding what to do with it, and only the first job can be handed to a tool. AviChat answers a member's question from their own collective agreement with the article and section cited, so the steward's time goes to the parts of this guide that need judgment: testing the case, presenting it and deciding whether to take it up. The line between the two kinds of work is the subject of Will AI replace union reps?

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Your collective agreement and your union's advice govern your situation. Deadlines in your agreement may be shorter than any shown here.