Chapter Case

But I Didn't Know

After a meeting with the operations manager of your organization, you close the door to your office so you can think of strategies to resolve an issue that has come up. The operations manager casually mentioned he had just finished a performance review of one of his employees and offered the employee a large raise because of all the hours the employee was putting in. The raise was equal to 11 percent of the employee's salary. The operations manager, being new both to the company and to a union shop, wasn't aware of the contract agreement surrounding pay increases. An employee must receive a minimum of a 2 percent pay increase per year and a maximum of 6 percent per year based on the contract. You worry that if the union gets wind of this, everyone at that employee's pay level may file a grievance asking for the same pay raise. Of course, the challenge is that the manager already told this person he would be receiving the 11 percent raise.

You know you need to act fast to remedy this situation.

1. As an HR professional, what should you have done initially to prevent this issue from happening?
2. Outline a specific strategy to implement stating how you will prevent this from happening in the future.
3. What would you do about the 11 percent pay raise that was already promised to the employee?
4. If the union files a grievance, what type of grievance do you think it would be? Provide reasoning for your answer.
5. If the union does file a grievance, draft a response to the grievance to share with your upper-level managers