GrieveRight is built around two principles: unions are federated organizations, and locals are autonomous. Here is exactly how the system works — from the organizational model to the grievance lifecycle to the visibility controls that keep your data private.
Not centralized. Not siloed. Federated.
Most SaaS platforms assume a top-down organizational structure: corporate headquarters controls everything, and regional offices are subordinate. That is not how unions work. In a union, the national office defines the contract framework and standards, but each local operates independently, handles its own grievances, manages its own stewards, and controls its own data.
GrieveRight mirrors this federated structure precisely. Here is how data flows:
The national union defines the structural framework that all locals inherit:
Each local's operational data is private and isolated:
Data reaches national only through explicit actions:
This is a hard rule with no exceptions: Local 100 cannot see Local 200's data. Not their grievances, not their users, not their documents, not their messages. Every request is scoped to the user's union and local — cross-tenant access is architecturally impossible. National staff can see only what has been explicitly shared or what has reached their level through the workflow. Even union administrators at the national level cannot see or manage local-level users — they can only manage other national-level staff.
A role hierarchy that matches union structure, with fine-grained capability controls.
GrieveRight uses a four-level role hierarchy combined with an explicit capabilities system. Roles determine what level of the organization you operate at. Capabilities grant specific administrative powers within your level.
The hierarchy is inclusive: a rep can do everything a grievant can, and a nat can do everything a rep can (at the national level). The nat role label is configurable per union — you might call them "National Business Agents," "Union Staff," or any title that fits your structure.
Capabilities are explicit permissions that grant specific administrative powers.
They are assigned per user, not per role. A rep with the local_admin capability
can manage users for their local. A nat with union_admin can manage national-level staff.
Independent of roles, administrators can assign custom display titles to any user — "Chief Steward," "Recording Secretary," "President," "Treasurer." These titles are displayed throughout the app and in case records. Titles are purely for display; they do not affect permissions or access. Only the role and capabilities determine what a user can do.
The full platform for a single steward — no union required.
Not every steward has the backing of a local that has signed up for a platform. Maybe you're the only steward in a small office. Maybe your local hasn't adopted any technology. Maybe you just want to get organized on your own. GrieveRight's Solo Steward plan gives you the full platform — grievance workflow, investigations, AI assistant, document management, deadline tracking, and more — all in a single-seat plan.
If your national union or local later signs up for GrieveRight, your solo account can be linked to the organization. Your existing data stays intact. The linking process is:
You don't need your national office to get started.
GrieveRight does not require your national union to be signed up before your local can start using the platform. Locals can sign up independently and start managing grievances immediately. Here is how it works:
When a local signs up and selects a national union from the directory that hasn't been onboarded yet, the system creates a "phantom union" — a lightweight placeholder that provides the organizational structure your local needs. Your local gets full access to all local-level features immediately.
Phantom unions function like real unions for your local's purposes. You can define contracts, set up stages, manage stewards, and file grievances. The only thing you won't have is national-level escalation — since there's no national staff to escalate to. Your stewards handle all stages themselves.
What happens when a grievance reaches a stage that's normally at the national level, but there are no national users? GrieveRight uses a handler-continues model: the current handler (steward) continues to operate the grievance at every stage, regardless of the stage's designated level.
This means solo stewards and locals without a national office can use full multi-stage workflows without any gaps. When your national eventually joins, the handoff model activates automatically for new cases.
When your national union creates their GrieveRight account, your local can submit a link request. Once approved by the national admin, your local gains access to the national-defined contracts, stage structures, and knowledge base documents. Your existing local data stays private — the national office does not gain retroactive access to your cases. Only cases that are actively advanced to national-level stages (or explicitly shared) become visible to national staff.
Define the framework. Coordinate the organization. Respect local autonomy.
National union offices set the organizational framework that all locals inherit. Here is exactly what a national union can configure and control:
Transferring cases between stewards and levels.
Grievances change hands. Stewards go on vacation. Cases advance from local to national. Administrators reassign workloads. GrieveRight handles all of these handoff scenarios with a single principle: the handler on the current pending step is always the single source of truth for who controls a case.
Fine-grained control over who can see what.
Grievance data is sensitive. Who filed the complaint, what happened, what management said, who the witnesses are — this information needs careful access control. GrieveRight provides three layers of visibility control:
The system tracks which users have explicit access to each grievance. Visibility is automatically granted to handlers when cases are created, advanced, or handed off. Additional users can be granted visibility manually by the handler. Visibility can also be revoked, and users can remove themselves from a case they no longer need to follow.
When a grievance reaches a national-level stage, national staff get metadata-only access by default — they can see the case exists, its status, and its stage, but not the documents, messages, or logbook. Full access requires an explicit visibility grant from the local handler. National-origin grievances (created at HQ level) give all national staff full access.
Within a grievance, individual documents and logbook entries can be marked as confidential. Confidential content is only visible to the author and users who have been granted explicit cross-level access. This lets stewards keep sensitive strategy notes or privileged documents restricted even within a case that multiple users have visibility to.
Keep union members informed about their own cases.
Union members shouldn't have to call their steward every time they want to know what's happening with their grievance. The grievant portal gives members a secure, read-only view of their own cases. They log in and see exactly where things stand.
Stewards invite grievants to the portal from within the grievance. The grievant receives an email with an activation link, sets up their password, and gains immediate access to their cases. Stewards can revoke portal access at any time. The grievant role is the most restricted in the system — they can only see their own cases, cannot file new grievances, and cannot send messages.
A simplified dashboard showing their active grievances with current status, stage, and assigned steward. They can click into each grievance to see the full timeline, read messages between stewards (read-only), view documents if access is granted, and check witness statement request status. They can update their profile, upload an avatar, and manage their notification preferences (email and SMS).
How billing, seats, and organizational management work.
GrieveRight bills based on active seats — the number of stewards (reps) or national staff (nats) who are actively using the system. Grievants do not count as seats and never incur a charge. Deactivating a user removes them from the seat count.
One seat. One steward. Flat monthly or annual rate. No per-seat scaling — you are the only user. Includes all features and 20 GB storage.
Per-seat pricing based on active reps in your local. Add and remove stewards as your team changes. Seat count syncs to Stripe automatically. Storage scales with seats (50 GB + 10 GB/seat).
Per-seat pricing based on active nat users across the entire union. All locals share one storage pool (100 GB + 10 GB/seat). Unified billing at the national level.
Users with the local_admin capability manage their local's day-to-day operations.
They can add and remove stewards, invite grievants to the portal, manage local-level knowledge
base documents, view access logs and reports, manage contract articles and stages (if not
centrally defined by national), reassign grievances between stewards, and oversee the local's
billing and subscription status.
Users with the union_admin capability manage the national office. They can manage
national-level staff (nat users only — never local users), define union-wide contracts
and stage workflows, manage union-wide knowledge base documents, approve link requests from
locals, configure the nat role label, enforce two-factor authentication, and oversee
union-level billing. Union admins cannot see or modify local-level data directly.
End to end, from the first complaint to final resolution.
A union member approaches a steward with a workplace issue. The steward sends a digital intake form or opens an investigation.
The steward investigates: collects witness statements, reviews the contract, gathers documents, and keeps a logbook. If a violation is found, proceeds to filing.
The steward files a formal grievance under the applicable contract. AI suggests contract articles and strengthens the description. Deadlines are auto-generated.
If not resolved at the current step, the grievance advances through the defined workflow stages. Each step has its own description, remedy, articles, and deadlines.
If the workflow includes national-level stages, the case is handed off to national staff with full case history. Visibility is managed automatically.
The grievance is resolved — settled, denied, withdrawn, held in abeyance, or closed. The complete record is preserved for reference. Cases can be reopened within a configurable window if needed.
GrieveRight doesn't have to replace anything. It makes what you already do better.
Many unions already have a grievance tracking system at the national level — and GrieveRight is not asking you to throw it away. GrieveRight is a workflow tool, not just a database. It helps reps do the actual work of building a case: investigating complaints, collecting witness statements, drafting stronger language with AI assistance, managing deadlines, and collaborating with other stewards. That work has to happen whether or not you have a national system of record.
We also know that your current system probably generates its own grievance forms — PDF forms, step appeal templates, or other documents your reps are required to file. Those forms can be uploaded directly into GrieveRight and attached to the grievance record. Everything stays in one place: the forms your national system produces alongside the witness statements, logbook entries, evidence, and case notes your reps build in GrieveRight.
Reps use GrieveRight as their daily tool — investigating, drafting, collecting statements, tracking deadlines, and building the strongest possible case. The AI assistant, investigations workflow, logbooks, witness statements, and deadline tracking all live here.
When the case is ready — or at any point in the process — export the complete record (PDF case packages, CSV data, document archives) and upload it to your national system. GrieveRight makes it easy to generate exactly the artifacts your national office needs.
Think of it this way: most grievance software is a filing cabinet — a place to store records after the work is done. GrieveRight is the workbench where reps actually build the case. You can use both. The workbench makes the filing cabinet better.
Whether you're a solo steward, a local union team, or a national office — there's a plan that matches your structure. Start with a 30-day free trial.