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Employment tribunals are biased, aren’t they?

Lots of employers think so, judging by the dozens of conversations which I have had over the years when working for employer clients. Go to any networking event or business function and you will hear that point being made forcefully, as often as not. The theme is always the same. Employees have an unfair advantage. It costs them nothing to claim in the tribunal. They are helped by rip-off merchants using “no-hay no-pay” deals. The tribunals bend over backwards to help employees. They are far too sympathetic. Too many claims are made. Far too many of them are downright frivolous. Just look at all of the newspaper reports that you read every day about employment tribunal decisions.

Funnily enough, employees think tribunals are biased as well, judging by the dozens of conversations which I have had with employee clients. You will hear so many people saying the same sort of thing in pubs and working men’s clubs and so on. They are convinced that employers have an unfair advantage. After all, they can afford expensive lawyers. They get the VAT back. They set the bill off against profits for tax and so on. The tribunals bend over backwards to help companies. The judges are used to hob-nobbing with employers and are far too sympathetic to them.

My own take on this is that both points of view are wrong. Generally speaking, there is no real bias one way or the other in tribunals. There may be the odd offender – I occasionally say as much if a case I am running in the tribunal goes in an unexpected direction. However, the tribunals really are pretty fair in the way that they handle cases. I can say this with some confidence, having run cases in employment tribunals since 1980 from Exeter to Glasgow and nearly all points in between. It’s not really surprising when you consider how much training all of the members of employment tribunals now have to undergo.

The reality is that both sides do get a fair crack of the whip when a case is heard in the employment tribunal. In my experience there is no significant bias one way or the other overall. Sorry to disappoint.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michael McFetrich .