Employment disputes trigger rising Tribunal claims
The number of cases being taken to an Employment Tribunal has soared over the last 12 months by 56%.
This is according to the latest figures out by the Tribunals Service which reports a steep rise in the number of claims brought against employers in England, Scotland and Wales. In the 12 months to the end of March 2010, 236,100 claims were brought in the employment tribunals, a dramatic rise from the 151,000 claims last year.
Claims associated with the Working Time Directive saw a steep increase to 95,200 although many of these (10,600) are attributed to airline cases that the courts say are resubmitted every three months whilst 75,500 were unauthorised deductions (Wages Act).
There were 126,300 jurisdictional claims associated with unfair dismissal, breach of contract and redundancy which is 17% higher than for 2008-09.
Comparatively equal pay claims dropped during 2009-10 by 18% to 37,400.
Commenting Owen Warnock, partner at international law firm Eversheds said: “It is clear that the steep increase in claims this year is mainly attributable to multiple claimant claims, which rose by nearly 90 percent on the same period in 2008-9. This is exemplified by the fact that, as at the end of March, three fifths of the claims still to be dealt with by the Tribunals Service as a whole were multiple claimant cases to the employment tribunals.”
"The multiple claimant cases are cases in which two or more people bring cases arising out of the same or very similar circumstances. They will be largely equal pay, working time, TUPE and redundancy cases, often brought with union support.”
The figures also show a significant increase in the number of age discrimination claims: 5200, compared with the previous year's 3800 claims. However, Warnock points out that factors other than the recession will have played a part in this increase: “Laws protecting against age discrimination in the workplace have been around for a relatively short period of time. As employees are becoming increasingly aware of their rights in this area it is not surprising that we should see a rise in the number of claims."
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