Businesses believe tribunal system favours employees

Indeed

I have to agree with the first poster - it's not rocket science!

My wife works in a HR-type area and sees quite a bit of this. She tells me that most companies will immediately fold and come to an agreement with the employee to prevent going to tribunal because the cost of the tribunal will almost always be higher than an informal settlement and the chances of the employer winning at the tribunal are very small anyway. This is true, even if it is blindingly obvious that the employee is having a laugh. Get a union involved and the employer may as well slash their own throat. And the larger the company, the more chance of them following this line of thinking.

For small companies, it's a real headache, because they simply do not have the resources to absorb the costs.

It's all a bit like the divorce court - "fair" and "just" has nothing to do with it. Not that I'm bitter, of course :-).

Sometimes companies deserve it.

As someone who has just started an Employment tribunal against my former employer I feel a need to comment.

I was dismissed for a weeks absence in just under a year, thing was I was being investigated for cancer at the time which luckily I didn't have. I was also dismissed the night before surgery without HR investgating why I was ill and all of my managers who were kept informed claimed to know nothing about my illness.

Maybe if the companies that abuse workers were actually fined for their breaking of the law instead of just damages awarded to the employee this would stop them abusing employment law.

Anonymous as I know the IT dept also read the Reg.

Of course...

"Sixty-six per cent of employers recognised that the fear of receiving a costly Tribunal claim impacted on their management decisions and the way they managed staff," the report said.

ie. it prevents them from walking all over their staff. There are cases where the employer is the one taking the piss.

I was using my private car for works busines and it was later discovered that given the mileage I was doing, I shouldn't have been on casual mileage, I should have been on car allowance. The difference was about £4,000.

I took them to tribunal.

Case law stated that expenses are not a deducation of wages and despite the judge really grilling them (it was obvious to him that I wasn't taking the mick) the case law was cast iron and the judges hands were tied.

Even though they won, they didn't stitch me for their costs. I took that as a sign of guilt. The costs were instead shouldered by the tax payer.

@ Indeed 09:54

Employers do settle because of the cost and PITA of going to a tribunal. It doesn't mean that they agree with the employees 'gripe'. An employee can give notice to leave, they can just walk out at the chance of forfeiting their months pay but if an employer has a crap person it is so difficult to get rid of them.

You can follow all the performance reviews and appraisals you like but if the employee disagrees and doesn't want to leave a job where they are obviously not enjoying and/or can't actually do to a sufficient level then the employer is over a barrel – that situation is so biased towards the employees and ends up costing small businesses a lot of money they can ill afford. They then see the carrot of 2-3 months tax free pay.

It's not easy on this side of the fence, we're not all big fat cats trying to screw everyone for everything they have despite what the gutter press seem to keep implying.

Employees rights

Employees have all the rights, because Employers have all the power. They determine your performance, your (lack of) pay rises and bonuses, they tell you what to do, make most decisions about your working conditions and location outside of your control, and internal grievance processes are run by their staff. Only the threat of tribunals keeps employers as honest as they are.

In my experience, many employees that are treated badly don't bother to claim.

At one of the companies I worked for (run from the states) , they decided to fire the "lowest 10% performers" one year. They determined these by secret ballots of team leaders and longer term employees, and then got rid of those employees without redundancy processes or performance warnings etc. The fact that most of the team leaders and long term employees were among the lowest performers seemed to escape them , this was just used to get rid of people that were disliked by one or more of the chosen raters in actuality.

Threats to immediately withdraw stock options (worth a considerable amount) were used to bully employees that were "fired" , those that objected would have these withdraw immediately, losing any money they were worth. Those that accepted being illegally fired without due process got to exercise them within a couple of months.

Despite all this, only one employee I know of went to a tribunal. I imagine it was settled for a considerable amount, as it was all hushed up after that.

The company was ofc still hiring more people in the same roles as those that were "fired"

Companies run from the states often dont seem to grasp the concept of employees rights (apart from discrimination of course)

For my experience, UK employees don't grasp the concept of rights either.

I imagine they had more expensive tribunal cases after that, as the standard of HR improved a little while afterwards and this kind of thing stopped happening.

I was not affected by this directly btw, but a friend of mine who was amongst those illegally fired said that he couldn't be arsed contesting it as it was easier to get another job.

Tribunals, Employers and Employees... nobody is well served at present.

This is a double edged sword. I am in favour of employees being protected (I am an employer), however, there is also a significant issue with employees being able to make cliams irrespective of true merit, using opportunist measures to make a claim.

The biggest issue is that as it stands, employees are not required to provide any real proof or take any real cost for making the claim at all. While I am not advocating that the employee should be handling over hundreds to a solicitor just to make a claim (there are numerous reasons why this isn't reasonable), I think "no win no fee" is a particular blight - they're never interested in the true merit, they just take on a case and can cause costs to the employer (irrespective of guilt), and often this causes an out of tribunal settlement because it is the cheaper option.

The problem with defending something if you're innocent is that it can often cost more than just settling up on a "no blame accepted" basis. That's bad because (a) it means true justice is not done (true justice means fair hearing to BOTH sides), (b) smaller employers in particular are adversely affected when they've done nothing wrong, both in repuation and financially where they may not have huge resources, (c) employees who've had no wrong done will pick up some tax free cash (it sounds good, but the reality is that's bad for everyone in the long run), but of course (d) the solicitors are raking it in though baseless claim handling.

If an employee wants to take someone to tribunal, that's fine, but they should have to:

(a) provide some form of evidence and substansive claim

(b) they should not be allowed (as they are at present) to just tick all the boxes about harassment etc as an added bonus (if there was no issue, how can an employer really show there was none - you don't document non-events!)

(c) need to pay some form of "case" charges

(d) be properly liable that should the case be found as frivilous or non-substanciated forced to pay some form of costs - it may not recover the employers cost I guess, but they should suffer for false claims.

Anywhere else a false claim is fraud...

Employment Law is a shambles, and it is genuinely unfair on GOOD employers, not good enough to make sure justice is done for BAD employers, and doesn't actually serve employers or employees well at the end of the day.

Even in Small Claims Court, I have to pay a fee to start a case (which when I win I normally get back!), yet somehow employment tribunals cost nothing. Something is totally wrong there!

He would say that, wouldn't he

seems to cover the employer's reaction.

It cut sboth ways

Employers 'try it on as well'

I was one of 300 or so other employees who were illegally dismissed by our company (after it went into administration, but was still trading). The administrators employed top London lawyers and tried every procedure they could think of to block our claim. We had to get barristers to pursue our claim in a tribunal. After about 15 months the admistrators did an about face and said they did not have any grounds for dismissal without notice and so would not now contest the claim (though they did argue some technicalities).

We won (and the judge agreed very much with our case and dismissed the technicalities). We should have had a large 'award' except when a company is in administration it does not have to pay such awards. Instead the goverment gives the claimants a 'token' sum.

I guess a quicker process would have helped, but don't make it harder for employees.

Keeping the talent

As an employer we do everything we can to keep creative, hardworking, intelligent people....unfortunately you normally can only pick one of those options.

@ I can recognise bull when I read it.

I agree large companies do have procedures in place and the company I worked for did have them but they only work when they are followed. When they fail to follow them it's time for the Employment Tribunal as it is pretty much the only course open.

You seem to assuming that everyone follows the law. We have employment laws to stop these things happening but just like making murder ilegal people still do it.

Good!

"Sixty-six per cent of employers recognised that the fear of receiving a costly Tribunal claim impacted on their management decisions and the way they managed staff," the report said.

Good! That means it is working as a preventative measure.

Too many ill-trained inexperienced managers believe that they can unilaterally end the employment at their whim, deserved or not. Most employers who end up at the tribunals are banged to rights because they simply have not followed proper procedures.

When it comes to Wrongful Dismissal, the most an employee can get is the correct money owed to them plus a 25% bonus. That almost makes it worthwhile for the employer to try it on, with not a lot to lose, gambling on the fact that some employees will not pursue a claim.

The existence of tribunals prevent breach of contract cases etc ending up in even more costly courts.

@ Paul "Good"

I don't think you are right on the plus 25%, but you haven't taken into account the other costs to the employer. They have to pay the legal and court costs of both sides plus there is the length of time they have to spend preparing their case. That is why many employers 'give in' and just pay up even when they know they have a strong case; they just want to get on trying to run their business with good staff that they want and also staff who want to be there.

It's simply cheaper and less aggravation; a number of employees know that as do the numerous employment lawyers working on a no win no fee basis. A different kind of ambulance chaser.

sure it does

cost to employer = huge

risk to employee = negligible

votes lost due to policy = none

eerm ya