The Employment Relationship and the Administration of Workplace Discipline

This Article is about the employment relationship and the administration of discipline through the adherence to fair procedure. It focuses primarily on the governing rules and regulations in an employment relationship and addresses the inevitability of conflicts at the workplace, considering that conflict is inevitable in every relationship. In this context, “conflict” here is looked at from the viewpoint of “workplace conflict,” which may lead to a disciplinary action. Under the employment relationship, which is founded on a contract, there is need for the parties to know their respective roles and responsibilities, such that if a party, especially, the employee is alleged to have done wrong, he/she can be taken through a fair procedure to establish the guilt or otherwise. In this direction, the article considers “fairness” in its various forms - fairness of the procedure, i.e. the worker’s right to a fair hearing, procedural fairness of the hearing process, and fairness of the final decision.