Industrial Relations and Economic Performance Grievances and Productivity

This study documents a significant inverse relationship between grievance rates and productivity. It is argued in the theoretical model in the paper that this significant inverse relationship reflects greater discrepencies between reported and effective labor hours as grievance rates increase. Agrievance-free plant is some 1.3% more productive and up to i6.y% more profitable than when the plant operates with an average rate of grievances, so that industrial relations performance can critically influence the performance of the firm.