The new statutory Discipline and Grievance Procedures were introduced on 1st October 2004 (see green pages, The Activist, Issue 5, October 2004). The procedures set minimum standards for discipline and grievance issues in the workplace. If these procedures are not followed, employees may have their compensation reduced if they pursue a Tribunal claim or lose the right to bring a Tribunal claim at all. Employers who do not comply are open to claims of automatically unfair dismissal and increased compensation claims from employees.
These new rights are particularly aimed at employers who do not have adequate procedures in place to protect employees in disciplinary and grievance situations. However, the procedures will not apply where the union has a recognition and procedure agreement in place. This is because, in most cases, the agreement is likely to provide better than the minimum standards applied in the statutory procedures. Therefore, the agreed union/employer procedures will continue to operate in place of the statutory procedures.
In the health sector, recognised disciplinary and grievance procedures should operate in the usual way, but representatives should audit proceedings to ensure that they are not drawn out or stagnate so that the whole process takes too long to complete. The statutory procedures are meant to provide a fair process for dealing with employer or employee complaints, and this includes not dragging out the time it takes to reach a resolution. In circumstances where proceedings take months or years to complete, this can often be unfair to the employee and to any witnesses involved in the proceedings.
The statutory right to be accompanied at a disciplinary or grievance hearing in S.10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 runs alongside the statutory procedures. Under S.10, the recommended limit for delaying any meeting where a companion or union rep is unable to attend a meeting on the first occasion is 5 working days. It is worth considering applying this standard where practicable in order to speed up the disciplinary or grievance process, unless illness, holidays or some other relevant factor prevents individuals from attendance. At all times the requirement to avoid undue delay should be balanced against the rights of the individual member to have a fair hearing as well as the practical difficulties there may be for representatives preparing for the meeting.
LINDA SOHAWON
21.10.04