London Letter: Workers reluctant to take cases against employers due to charges

Victoria Wasteney from Ilford in Essex lost this week when she complained that she had been unfairly disciplined after a female Muslim colleague reported her for trying to convert her to Christianity.

Wasteney was initially suspended when the complaints were first made by Enya Nawaz, with whom she had worked at a secure institution for mentally ill patients in Homerton.

Following an internal inquiry, Wasteney was found to have bullied her co-worker and was given a final written warning, though she claimed the allegations were untrue and that she had been branded “a religious nutcase”.

This week, an employment tribunal found against her. Wasteney intends to appeal to the UK’s employment appeal tribunal, claiming that her rights to freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights have been violated.

The journey to the tribunal for Wasteney will be more expensive than it once was. In July 2013, charges were introduced in the UK for employees who challenged dismissals or other decisions.

Straightforward claims, such as disputes over wages, holiday pay, or redundancy, cost £160 (€220) when the paperwork is lodged, though an extra £230 must be paid before the case will be heard by the tribunal.

Range of fees

More complicated cases cost the claimant £250 at the beginning, along with £950 before the hearing – while both employer and claimant face a range of other fees along the way when other paperwork is required.

For the first time, charges were imposed on cases lodged with the employment appeal tribunal, Wasteney’s final destination, with applications costing £400 and another £1,200 due before the case is heard.

The effect of the charges has been startling, with the number of cases lodged by workers falling by 70 per cent since 2013, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Employment appeals have long been unpopular with employers, who argue that the system has led to a litany of vexatious and expensive claims by disgruntled employees.

However, not every employer agrees. More than a third of employers, according to a survey carried out by the CIPD, believe that the pendulum has swung too far, and the fees should be abolished or reduced.

“Employers have long complained about the damaging effect that weak or unsubstantiated claims have on their business,” said Mike Emmott of the CIPD after its survey was published. “But given the staggering drop in the number of claims that has taken place since, it must be the case that some perfectly valid claims have been discouraged as a result of the new fees.

“Fees may not make it impossible for claimants to pursue their case but they’ve certainly made it more difficult, which begs the question: are we putting too high a price on justice?”

Business secretary Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats has condemned the Conservatives for insisting that the fees be introduced in the teeth of opposition from his party and said that he wanted them removed.

The fees are "a huge victory" for the UK's worst bosses, the Trades Union Congress says, though the Unison union has failed in two court bids to get judges to overthrow them.

Challenges

The first challenge – lodged even before the new rules came into force and heard eight months afterwards when case numbers had fallen by 79 per cent – fell because judges ruled it “premature”, lacking the robust evidence needed.

Late last year Unison went back to court, arguing that the continuing collapse in case numbers proved its point, also claiming that women – the ones most likely to be in poor, underpaid jobs – were being particularly discriminated against.

Rejecting the second attempt, the high court in London accepted, as one solicitors’ firm has put it, “that the days of overcrowded tribunal waiting rooms” are over. In his ruling, Lord Justice Elias said: “I suspect that there may well be cases where genuinely pressing claims on a worker’s income will leave too little available to fund litigation.”

However, the court had been shown “no evidence at all that any individual has even asserted that he or she has been unable to bring a claim because of cost”, he said.

The collapse in the number of cases demonstrated “incontrovertibly” the “marked effect” of the fees on workers’ willingness to bring a claim, but it did not “prove that any of them are unable, as opposed to unwilling, to do so” to pay for them, he said.