The purpose of the grievance procedure is to bring about a speedy resolve to a dispute between an employee and his/her employer. To use the procedure is a complex and sometimes uncomfortable situation in itself.
		Retaliation for using the procedure can come about in various methods or manners. Increasing a punishment or penalty after filing a grievance is a blatant act and should be covered directly by the procedure itself.
		Increasing the penalty not only harms the person who filed the grievance by punishing them for appealing, but also harms the entire system. Other officers will be intimidated to file an appeal if they know the discipline will be increased. Due Process cannot be attained if access to the grievance procedure is chilled by threats of increasing the penalty for those who use the system.
		Until this clarification in the procedure one had to file a second grievance to grieve the retaliation. This does not produce a speedy resolve and acts as an inhibitor for employees to use the grievance system at all.
		Increasingly, individual appellants from various jurisdictions around the state have used the grievance procedure to appeal punishment and have reached what is typically step III or the level of the chief of police, and were told that if they didn=t accept their punishment then the punishment would be increased and, or the employee would be terminated. This is a retaliatory act.
		Punishment is set at the first step of the disciplinary process. Many punishments are not appealed because they are fairly determined. The employee should have all the information including the level of discipline before he/she makes the decision to appeal. Once one is in the appeal process the rules of the game cannot change. To allow punishments to be increased any time during the procedure is unfair and clearly falls under an act of retaliation.