The Grievance Process in the Philadelphia Public Service

Abstract

During the past fifty years, the share of government in total employment has nearly tripled in the United States. Although federal employment has increased much more rapidly than government employment as a whole, nearly seven of every ten government workers are employed by state and local governmental units. Coincident with this expansion of employment, the pressure by government workers for representation and collective bargaining has also increased, particularly in some of our larger municipalities. Several of these cities have attempted to develop labor relations policies that will accommodate both the demand of their employees for representation through unions of their own choice and the need of government to retain its authority unimpaired. Philadelphia is one such city. There, in the absence of the power to strike and of arbitration, the grievance procedure is a key factor in the development of a satisfactory, albeit limited, collective bargaining relationship between the city and a majority of its employees. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)