Throughout the Toolbox, each of the models described will be applied to the same conflict situation to illustrate both how the model can diagnose a conflict and how it can give guidance to the practitioner based on that diagnosis. The basic outline of the situation is given here.
The parties were part of a small work team in a government agency. It consisted of two clerks, Bob and Diane. Bob had been in the same position for over 12 years, with a good performance record. Diane was new, with 1 year in the position. They were both union members and co-equals, meaning that they had the same pay and job classification, a CL-1. They did similar tasks in the office, but for the sake of efficiency and personal interest, Bob did more accounting work and Diane did more client-service work. The office supported a large group of professional engineers who were also union employees and reported to Sally, the manager. Bob and Diane also reported to Sally, who was new to the job as of two months ago.
After two months of settling in, Sally revealed to the whole department that she was there with a mandate to revamp the workflows, change and improve the way services were provided, and generally improve the department's slipshod performance and poor quality standards.
As she began to make changes and restructure, a number of staff members filed grievances, alleging that she was ignoring the collective agreement and requiring union members to perform tasks that were not at all related to their job classifications. Sally backed off on some of her demands but not others, and she was not considered popular. None of the grievances had gone as far as arbitration yet.
Compounding the negative atmosphere was the fact that the organization had been negotiating a new collective agreement for the last 15 months, and it was now 12 months since the last collective agreement had expired. There was considerable frustration with senior management among the staff over this.
As part of the process, Sally announced an upgrade to one of the two clerk positions from a CL-1 to an AS-1. The AS-1 role entailed a raise and was considered, in some ways, a supervisory position. The AS-1 would be responsible for most of the customer service functions, as well as assigning work to the CL-1. In addition, the AS-1 would be the interface for all communications to and from the manager but would not be doing performance reviews of the CL-1 and would not have any authority to discipline. It was equivalent to a “lead hand” position.
As with any union position, the AS-1 position was posted for competition, but was posted on short notice, and Bob and Diane were the only applicants for the position. At the end of the competition, Diane was awarded the position. Bob immediately grieved the decision, claiming that it was not conducted fairly and that the criteria used were biased against him.
Informal meetings between Sally and the union were held about the grievance, and Sally agreed that there might have been problems with how the competition was structured. Both parties agreed that the competition would be rerun. Diane's appointment was revoked and a new competition was run. Again, Diane and Bob applied, and this time Diane won by a larger margin than the first time. Bob tried to file another grievance but the union informed him that they had reviewed the process and found that the competition was run in accordance with the collective agreement rules. Bob complained to the union that his manager had never offered him “acting” supervisor assignments to develop his supervisory skills, nor given him a chance to improve his customer service skills through training, and this was why he wasn't promoted. The union told him this wasn't grievable and that they couldn't help.
Bob's behavior began to suffer. He was sullen and uncooperative with both Sally and Diane. He refused to take instructions from Diane, saying that he would take directions only from Sally, and his behavior came close to insubordination. Sally met with him and warned him that he would be disciplined if he didn't do what Diane told him. After that, his attitude got even worse. He did what he was told but only the absolute minimum, and he did it with a negative attitude, adopting a sort of “work-to-rule” approach. The only people he spoke to at work were other staff unhappy with Sally and the changes she was making.
After about a month, he started coming in 15 to 20 minutes late every few days and consistently left the minute quitting time came, regardless of who needed what. When Diane asked him about this, he simply said that other staff came in late, too. Although this was occasionally true, other employees came in late a few times a year, not weekly. In addition, he told Diane it wasn't her job to discipline him and asked to be left alone.
Diane had a very hard time dealing with Bob. She often had to ask him more than once to do a task, and if she followed up with him, he got angry. Many times, instead of telling Diane what work he had completed, he told Sally. Diane didn't know what to do, and in her frustration, she began raising her voice to Bob in a threatening manner, and occasionally used profanity.
Diane complained to Sally that she couldn't take much more of Bob's negative attitude and behavior. When Diane confronted him about this, he said that he had no problem with her, that it was Sally's fault, but he continued to be uncooperative. Diane continued to be disrespectful, in Bob's opinion. Bob, for his part, said openly to other staff members that Sally played favorites, that he had seniority and should have been promoted, that Sally chose Diane because they were both women, that the union was helping management shut him out, and that he was being discriminated against. Although all of this behavior was unpleasant, Bob continued doing just enough of his job to avoid serious discipline, and Sally didn't know what to do.
Bob continued to look for ways to grieve the results of the competition and promotion, but the union made it clear that they wouldn't accept a grievance on the issue because they felt that the competition didn't violate the collective agreement. Bob decided to file a harassment complaint against Diane for the verbal abuse he claimed she was giving him.