Should the rules on workplace grievance procedure be changed?
Posted on Tuesday 19 June, 2007
Filed Under Trade Unions
One of Gordon Brown’s first acts as prime minister will be to scrap rules – introduced in 2004 – that were designed to speed up the resolution of disputes in the workplace. Unnecessary bureaucracy, we are told.
This is likely to be bad news for those on short-term contracts, who may no longer get access to grievance procedures, according to one major union:
UCCAT ,[sic] the construction union, argues that the statutory procedures give much-needed protection for building workers on short-term or temporary contracts. Before statutory rights existed, “grievances of UCATT members were usually ignored”, said the union.
Alan Ritchie, UCATT general secretary, said: “It is outrageous that the government could even consider denying workers guaranteed access to grievance procedures. Thousands of my members work on short-term contracts, on a temporary basis or through an employment agency. Voluntary arrangements previously failed these workers and will do so in the future.”
And who decided that these rules should go? Well, the boss of a major company, who believes that they generate needless red tape for employers:
The consultation period, which ends tomorrow, was ordered after a “root and branch” review of the regulations, headed by Michael Gibbons, a former director of Powergen, concluded that, rather than encouraging early resolution, the rules had “led to the use of formal processes to deal with problems which could have been resolved informally”.
UCATT’s lawyers counter:
Trade union lawyers OH Parsons, who have been advising UCATT, claim that the procedures “have provided valuable protection to many construction workers who have been disciplined or have wanted to raise employment rights issues with their employer”.
Parsons say: “These procedures are not simply technical matters for lawyers, they provide genuine support for workers’ rights in the workplace. Their removal would create injustice, and deny many workers the means of expressing legitimate concerns at work.”
But the TUC is backing the government’s move. General secretary Brendan Barber argues:
“The TUC is firmly committed to the principle that workplace disputes should be resolved through effective internal procedures. But we have concerns with the 2004 legislation – in particular, rules relating to employment tribunals have proved complicated and have restricted access to justice. There’s been a tendency for employers to focus on process as opposed to dealing with issues at stake.”
Based purely on reading this story in today’s Financial Times, I tend to agree with the UCATT position. But then again, I’m no expert on this stuff. However, I do know that some employment lawyers and many workplace union reps read this blog. So let me appeal for information. Who is right on this one?
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9 Responses to “Should the rules on workplace grievance procedure be changed?”
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UCATT are right.
Although it is often preferable to resolve things informally, it’s important to have formal procedures.
I would have thought that without them even more cases will end up at tribunal, which doesn’t favour the worker.
There are many problems with ETs but this will not help resolve them.
A rep.
It is all a bit cumbersome – in a training session it was explained to us that a Post-it note with ‘Dave Osler really gets up my nose’ is enough to automatically launch the greivance procedure.
The lack of discresion is awkward, but at least it forces employers to have a greivance procedure, and I suppose in a workplace it means it’s easy to trigger it. Further, our formal procedures include an informal stage (more or less), and I’ve seen what could have turned into nasty poisonous disputes had they been allowed to fester to the point of needing serious resolution being dealt with swiftly.
I would imagine that having both – initially an internal grievance procedure – which, if this does not lead to a satisfactory result (for the worker), can then be followed up with a formal case at an industrial tribunal – would be the best system.
Having only had experience with the German system, can someone please explain how ‘internal’ grievance procedures work in the UK, without the (very bureaucratic and legalistic) framework that the ‘Betriebsrat’ (works councils) system (the other side of the ‘strikes are basically in most cases illegal’ German-model-coin) provides?
Any good procedure should have an informal stage at first. If daft cases are getting too far down the line that isn’t a problem with the legislation but rather that bad procedures are being put in place in workplaces.
KMS,
A random greivance procedure from a large organisation….
The first thing to note is that you can’t look at the greivance procedures in isolation from the disciplinary procedures, as the two were implemented symmetrically. The problem with the greivance procedures was that for not following them an employee could lose her chance to make a claim before a tribunal or lose a great deal of her compensation. In order to stop this the courts have been very generous in interpreting the ‘modified’ procedure, so all an employee had to do was send in a letter (and it didn’t have to be a formal one) detailing the greivances.
The problem is that the courts basically took teh view that what happens for the greivance procedures also happens for the disciplinary procedures, so there is a low threshold there. In cases of summary dismissal all the employer has to do is send a letter to the employee detailing the reasons for it (with some possibility of appeal). In practice this has meant that they have had very little effect.
Also, the procedures were never incorporated into employment contracts, which meant that they were pretty much powerless to deal with suspensions etc., unless the employee resigned in response.
I think any future procedures really have to take into account the fact that there is an obvious imbalance of power between employers and employees, and so don’t make greivance and disciplinary procedures symmetrical. The problem would obviously be that the business lobby probably wouldn’t go for this.
Also, I think that in cases of contracts of employment there are some implied disciplinary and greivance procedures (under Gould v. McConnell?) but I’m not entirely sure of that.
I have agut symapthy with UCATT’s concerns, but I don’t see how, in practice, the statutory procedure helps workers on short-term contracts.
What it has done, however, is to have caused complete chaos and confusion at employment tribuals – usually to the detriment of claimants.
The real point, hoever, is that internal grievance and disciplinary procedures, and tribunals themselves, are contolled by the bosses: the working classd needs to reassert its ability to right wrongs in the workplace through the ability to take industrial action. Tribunals are all well and good (and it would be ultra-left to simply ignore them), but thet’re no substitute for workplace solidarity.
Until workers are given protection from unfair dismissal from day one of employment, that includes parity for agency workers, we are going to find a solution hard to come by. The very least that should be expected from employers in law is that they should be held to account if they fail to follow any fair procedure if the employee is on a short term contract, in cases of disciplinary or grievances.
In my view the best protection for short term workers is a robust union agreement where the employer is held to account by the collective power of the union membership.
If a short term worker is dismissed or victimised the union could go into dispute for breach of agreement.
It is very frustrating for us workplace reps when a member comes to you with a problem such as bullying and they have only got 6 months employment under their belt.Advising them to raise a grievance will in no way help if they dont want to confront the bully, who if he is the manager or the supervisor will get the full backing of the company leaving the onus on the member to prove it.
I get the idea that employers are starting to whinge about increased bureaucracy/red tape due to the grievance procedure.
Tough fucking shit I say.They can afford it.
I agree with Jim Denham that the procedures and tribunals are controlled by the bosses.
Jim is right about workplace solidarity.
When I was a full-time union official a strike threat from colleagues always seemed to bring out the moderate side of bosses quicker than a well argued presentation.
UCATT and the TUC are not necessarily at odds.
The statutory procedure should stay – but the tribunals should be more liberal about hearing cases where a grievance hasn’t been put in because the worker(s) are too scared of the boss.
Unfortunately tribunal members live in a world of co-operation and politeness where they assume bosses have their employees, interests at heart.
The workers I represented live in a world where they are bullied from dawn to dusk, paid the absolute minimum the fat-cat employer can get away with, and are so exhausted they die soon after retirement – which is what the bosses want cos it saves the pension fund money.