New Employment Legislation or the Tribunal System will Implode

Equal pay claims have risen drastically in the last two years, raising questions over whether the legal system can cope with the deluge of claims flooding the courts. Particularly badly affected are the NHS and public sectors, but employment lawyers predict the private sector will start to feel the pain in the not too distant future.

Among the factors leading to an increase in equal pay claims, the upsurge of ‘no win no fee’ solicitors has been blamed by a top trade union official as a core concern.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, has laid the blame at the feet of lawyers, saying: “no win no fee solicitors are finding equal pay claims a very lucrative bandwagon.”

As it currently stands in Britain there is a 17% gap between men and women working fulltime and 38% when working part time. But current law only provides for equal pay rights where the difference in pay is due to sexual discrimination.

From April 06 to March 07 there were just under one quarter of a million claims accepted by the employment tribunals - up from just over 156,081 during the same period in 04/05. Equal pay accounted for 44,013 claims having risen from just 8,229 in 04/05. The success rate for such claims was just two per cent at full tribunal level although a lot are settled before this point.

So why have the figures for equal pay claims increased so dramatically in just two short years? In a recent Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women in the world, occupations included CEOs, secretaries of state, vice presidents, presidents, politicians and prime ministers. Women have broken the glass ceiling and are at the forefront of business, politics and professions, but inequality in pay is still a major issue for the fairer sex.

But can legal action help the cause? With tribunals at breaking point from the flood of pay claims against local authorities, Jenny Watson, previous chair of the equal opportunities commission, said, while still in office, that the flood of pay claims brought recently against local authorities was pushing the Employment Tribunal to breaking point. The system seems to have been under prepared for the increased workload and has not had a proportionate increase in staff to help deal with the increased volume of claims.

One defense put up against the numbers is that they are exaggerated due to the number of group claims that have been launched. Before she left the EOC, Watson suggested that there be a moratorium on new claims, with affected companies given three years to rectify the situation. She also indicated that she felt the growth in the area of 'no win no fee' solicitors would continue, as the number of women seeking legal advice over pay related disputes shows no sign of dropping.

Article Source: http://www.theukarticledirectory.co.uk