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Bosses' fears over financial
Page 9
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repercussions of tribunals
Guy Sheppard reports on new survey about effects of employment tribunals.
MOST TRANSPORT and logistics bosses worry about the financial implications of being taken to an employment tribunal, according to a new government survey. The study also shows that nearly three-quarters of them fear the
effects that a tribunal would have on their stress levels.
The Department for Trade and Industry says the research emphasises the need for the new employment law which comes into force this October.
This will make it mandatory for all employers to have minimum dismissal, disciplinary and grievance procedures in place.
But Ruth Pott, the Road Haulage Association's head of employment affairs, predicts that the new law could actually encourage litigation: "If there is a statutoryprocedurewhichhastobe followed,that gives more scope for getting it wrong and creating more opportunities for ending up in a tribunal," she says. However, Pott praises the new law for requiring that employees exhaust all workplace grievance
procedures before going to a tribunal, noting: "At the moment the procedure is heavily weighted against the employer, as there is nothing the employee is obliged to do before going to a tribunal."
The research was carried out among 32 transport and logistics companies as part of a wider survey of 500 small and mediumsized businesses.
The DTI says employment tribunals dealt with 98,000 workplace disputes last year but, in more than a third of cases, the employees and their managers had not discussed their problems beforehand.