Grievance Procedure Strength and Teacher Quits

Abstract

Freeman's exit-voice model of unionism suggests that grievance procedure strength should be negatively related to the probability that an employee quits his or her job. In this study, which uses data on New York State public school teachers and districts from the mid-1970s, it is found that teachers with the two strongest types of grievance procedures in their contracts had a lower probability of quitting than those working under weaker grievance procedures. The author views this result as evidence that unionization can reduce quits through a “voice” effect.