Pyrrhic Victories - half of workers fail to receive their employment tribunal awards | ||
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The Ministry of Justice in its just published report reveals shocking statistics as to just how many workers are made to suffer further by employers who refuse to pay their tribunal awards.
A report into employment tribunal awards has just been published by the the Ministry of Justice. It shows that almost half of claimants who passed the not insubstantial hurdles along the way and actually won their employment tribunal case do not receive their money in full. 8% received something, 39% received nothing. Only 53% of workers received the full amount awarded. Just over a third of those not paid their employment tribunal awards actually attempted to register their claim in the county court. It is surprising that after going so far, so many workers allowed themselves to be defeated at the last hurdle.
The threat of the county court bailiff placing his muddy boot inside the director's lounge and laying his hand on the plasma can be quite a sobering thought however. Describing that scenario to employers often brings the recalcitrant employer into signing the cheque without more ado.
There have however been a number of reasons for the failure of workers to move to enforcing the judgement such as the cost of registering and enforcing the judgement (recoverable from the debtor. Since April 1 2009 there is no need to register the debt), bankruptcy of the employer or just his grinding the worker down by playing for time, and even paying out small sums when cornered (27% of workers had agreed to be paid in this way. Some received nothing). The failure of so many workers to receive their employment tribunal awards is yet another reminder of just how unfair to workers the employment tribunal system is. It is therefore understandable that so many workers who are discriminated against or unfairly dismissed don't ever try to seek justice. UPDATE The Justice Ministry in the wake of this report is reputedly considering tasking High Court enforcement officers with the additional role of enforcing Employment tribunal awards. If this means that the employment tribunal judgment is automatically registered as a debt with workers not first needing to go through all the different stages of registering the debt and then having to return to court to initiate other stages of the collection process, then this could be a welcome solution. The full report can be found Here |
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