The Relationship of Seniority to Job Performance Following Reinstatement

Abstract

In a seminal study, found that high seniority employees who were discharged but subsequently reinstated by arbitrators were significantly better performers than reinstated low seniority employees. Only one study since Ross's has replicated this result. Others have reported contradictory evidence. This study proposes a new theory to explain the relationship between seniority and job performance following reinstatement. By quantitatively combining results across studies, we show that senior grievants whom arbitrators exonerated were, just as Ross found, better performers than junior grievants. However, reinstated senior grievants who were not exonerated were found to be significantly poorer performers than nonexonerated junior grievants.