Dispute System Design and Justice in Employment Dispute Resolution: Mediation at the Workplace

TLDR

Control over dispute system design carries responsibilities. Employers use dispute system control either for risk management that limits employee recourse or to enhance employee voice and long‑term conflict management. REDRESS has improved workplace climate, reduced formal complaints, and shows that voluntary dispute systems can yield efficiencies while enabling employees to pursue public justice.

Abstract

Control over dispute system design brings with it responsibilities. Some employers have chosen to use that control solely for the purpose of risk management, to alter the settlement value of a discrimination case and render it impossible for an employee to obtain effective recourse from the public justice system through the imposition of mandatory arbitration. Other employers, admittedly for whom unilateral imposition of binding arbitration is not a legal option, have instead pursued different objectives: improving opportunities for voice and seeking longer term change in conflict management in the workplace. Looking back over a decade after REDRESS was first implemented, while no program perfectly achieves its design, REDRESS has served and continues to serve its greater purpose, to improve the workplace climate. The institutionalization of the program, its voluntary use by employees, and the significant reduction of formal complaints, suggest that employers may achieve efficiencies through a dispute system design that is voluntary and allows employees to pursue their cases to the public justice system.