Employment Tribunals
Employment Tribunals
Employment tribunals, formally known as industrial tribunals have been around for the past 35 years. Industrial tribunals became known as employment tribunals as a result of the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act 1998.
Industrial tribunals were created by section 12 of the Industrial Training Act 1964 and not, as many think resulting from the Donovan Commission. At that stage the Government were concerned by the levels of unofficial strikes and wage inflation. They subsequently set up a Royal Commission under Lord Donovan “to consider relations between managements and employees and the role of trade unions and employers’ associations in promoting the interests of their members and in accelerating the social and economic advance of the nation, with particular reference to the law affecting the activities of these bodies” The Donovan Commission reported in June 1968, presenting the “two systems” analysis of British industrial relations, identifying the “formal system” involving negotiations at industry level between the official institutions of trade unions and employers’ confederations and the “informal system” involving shop floor level bargaining between workers, shop stewards and managers.
According to the analysis, industrial conflict could be attributed in part to conflict between these two systems; between the assumptions and norms of the formal system and the practical realities of the informal. The functions of tribunals at that time were mainly to hear appeals from assessment to training levy under the 1964 Act, to determine entitlement to a redundancy payment under the Redundancy Payments Act 1965, to resolve disputes over the failure to provide, or the accuracy of, a written statement of terms and conditions of employment, certain appeals under the Selective Employment Payments Act 1966 and the determination of whether work was ‘dock work’ for the purposes of the Docks and Harbours Act 1966.
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Employment tribunals, formally known as industrial tribunals have been around for the past 35 years. Industrial tribunals became known as employment tribunals as a result of the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act 1998.
Industrial tribunals were created by section 12 of the Industrial Training Act 1964 and not, as many think resulting from the Donovan Commission. At that stage the Government were concerned by the levels of unofficial strikes and wage inflation. They subsequently set up a Royal Commission under Lord Donovan “to consider relations between managements and employees and the role of trade unions and employers’ associations in promoting the interests of their members and in accelerating the social and economic advance of the nation, with particular reference to the law affecting the activities of these bodies” The Donovan Commission reported in June 1968, presenting the “two systems” analysis of British industrial relations, identifying the “formal system” involving negotiations at industry level between the official institutions of trade unions and employers’ confederations and the “informal system” involving shop floor level bargaining between workers, shop stewards and managers.
According to the analysis, industrial conflict could be attributed in part to conflict between these two systems; between the assumptions and norms of the formal system and the practical realities of the informal. The functions of tribunals at that time were mainly to hear appeals from assessment to training levy under the 1964 Act, to determine entitlement to a redundancy payment under the Redundancy Payments Act 1965, to resolve disputes over the failure to provide, or the accuracy of, a written statement of terms and conditions of employment, certain appeals under the Selective Employment Payments Act 1966 and the determination of whether work was ‘dock work’ for the purposes of the Docks and Harbours Act 1966.
There was also a