Short answer. Yes, grievance machinery is squarely bargainable. The Labor Code defines the duty to bargain as covering wages, hours of work and all other terms and conditions of employment, and it expressly includes proposals for adjusting grievances or questions arising under the agreement. Wages and hours are examples, not the boundary.
What the law says
negotiating an agreement with respect to wages, hours of work and all other terms and conditions of employment including proposals for adjusting any grievances or questions arising under such agreement
Labor Code, Article 252 — Meaning Of Duty To Bargain. Read the full provision →
The subject matter is deliberately wide
Employers sometimes tell a bargaining panel that grievance handling is a management prerogative and belongs outside negotiations. The text does not support that. The duty runs to wages, hours of work, and all other terms and conditions of employment, and the statute then goes out of its way to name grievance adjustment as included. So a proposal on how complaints are filed, what steps they pass through, who sits on the grievance committee, how long each step may take, and what happens when a step lapses is a proper subject of negotiation. Refusing even to discuss it is not the same as refusing to concede it, and the two should not be confused.
What the duty actually requires
The obligation is procedural before it is substantive. Both sides must meet and convene promptly and expeditiously in good faith. In practice that means responding to a demand to negotiate within a reasonable time, sending people with authority, engaging with counter-proposals rather than repeating a fixed position, and not stalling by manufacturing delays. It is a mutual obligation, so a union that ignores scheduling or refuses to explain its proposals is exposed in the same way an employer is. Where an agreement is reached, either party may require that it be reduced to writing and executed as a contract; a party cannot pocket a concession and then refuse to sign.
The limit written into the same sentence
The provision ends with an important qualifier: the duty does not compel any party to agree to a proposal or to make any concession. This is the answer to the common misunderstanding that raising a subject at the table guarantees getting it. An employer may bargain in complete good faith over your grievance machinery, listen, counter, and still decline your version. What the law forbids is the refusal to engage, not the refusal to agree. Deadlock reached after genuine negotiation is a lawful outcome, and the parties are then left to the dispute-resolution routes available to them rather than to a claim that the duty itself was breached.
Practical points for the bargaining panel
Put proposals in writing, date them, and keep the record of meetings requested, held, and declined. If a refusal to bargain later becomes an issue, that paper trail is the evidence. Draft grievance clauses with concrete timelines and a stated consequence when a step is missed, since vague machinery is where agreements fail in practice. Finally, be clear about scope: this provision governs the duty to bargain and its subject matter. It does not decide which union represents the unit, how a deadlock is resolved, or whether any particular concerted action is lawful. Those turn on other rules and on the specific facts of your workplace.