Status quo agreements

In some workplaces, unions have negotiated “status quo” agreements in grievance procedures. This is an agreement that until all stages of dispute resolution are exhausted, the “status quo” will be maintained. In other words, the parties will carry on following the management rules and practices in place before the change that led to the grievance, and no worker will be disciplined for following the old rules. Status quo agreements are of most importance where management try to impose changes to terms and conditions.

Unless a written grievance procedure contains a clear “status quo” agreement, there is no rule that just because a grievance has been taken out, the status quo will be preserved until the grievance procedure has been exhausted. On the contrary, without a clear status quo agreement, an employee who refuses to implement a change on the ground that a grievance process has not yet been completed risks being fairly dismissed for unreasonably failing to obey a lawful order (Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) v Marshall [2010] UKEAT/0488/009).

There is no obligation on the employer to put a disciplinary process on hold while a grievance is being dealt with (Jinadu v Docklands Buses Limited [2015] UKEAT 0434/14/1703): see “Overlapping disciplinary and grievance procedures” on page 60.