What employment tribunal cases tell us about dissent

This is an excerpt from my in-progress book, Dissenters.

In the U.K., employment tribunal is the final decision in any employee's claim of wrongdoing by their employer. Most employers prefer to settle in lieu of going to court, but there are the stubborn few who don’t. Tribunal is scary for many employees — it’s rolling the dice on a decision while racking up lawyer fees, so seeing which dissenters felt so passionately about their cases to actually go to tribunal was fascinating. I read and qualitatively coded 100 cases of employment tribunals in the U.K. to see what, if any, patterns emerged — and I found some interesting trends. 58% of cases were filed by men, versus just 42% cases filed by women. 54% of all cases were successful. But what I found most interesting is that the cases I chalked up to gaslighting — unfair dismissal, discrimination, breach of contract, etc. — were some of the hardest to win. While they made up 67% of complaints, only 28% of these claims were successful. Compensation claims, such as withheld wages or unauthorized deductions, etc, made up the rest of the majority of the complaints, Those claims enjoyed a much higher success rate, with 76% of cases winning. But what struck me about the compensation claims were the incredibly tiny amounts of money that people were willing to go to tribunal for — the majority of the amounts in question were under £2,000. So is it the money, or is it the principle of the matter and a history of bad behaviour by an employer? Perhaps this withheld wage, however tiny the amount, was the last straw for many.

But what surprised me most of all were the cases that weren’t there. Reasons for dissent such as unethical behaviour or a conflict in values didn’t appear. That’s when I realized there aren’t laws in place for those situations.

End excerpt.

Now, for some news that's not in the book — I think tribunal courts are increasingly on the employee's side, and awarded damages are climbing. We've got the case of the employee who was awarded £29,000 for being compared to Star Wars character Darth Vadar. This NHS cleaner who was off over 400 days in just four years was awarded £50,000 for unfair dismissal. And this entrepreneur was awarded £50,000 for a sham redundancy.

Employees are also using the power of social media to learn about the tribunal process. Several TikTokers are sharing their journey of tribunal — and associated lessons — with their followers. There are multiple HR law TikTok accounts who explain the ins-and-outs of the process and de-mystify it. What this practice does is create transparency around how it all works, and thus removes the fear of uncertainty. It's also giving people the encouragement they need.

What a lovely development.