Disputes, Strikes & Grievances

Rights and responsibilities for disgruntled workers

This section addresses both employers' and employees' rights regarding the topics of:

• disputes
• strikes
• grievances

Disputes

Since 1st October 2004, employers and employees have been guided by new statutory rules to ensure that attempts are made to resolve disputes internally before taking the case to an employment tribunal.

It is often unclear in these cases whether the dismissal and disciplinary procedures or the grievance procedures apply, or if both may be relevant.

In any case, in accordance with statutory laws, an employee’s claim will not be considered at an employment tribunal if he/she has not put in a statutory grievance when the law required them to do so.

Strikes

A strike is when an employee or group of employees enforce a break in their work as an official demonstration. "Industrial action short of a strike", as described in the Employment Relations Act, may include an overtime ban, or conducting a rest-day working for the purpose of authorizing industrial action.

In the event that an employee has taken part in an unofficial strike or strike action, if dismissal should occur then the employee would be unable to make an unfair dismissal claim, with the exception of cases involving the "automatically unfair" reasons that can be found stated in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (c. 52).

Grievances

Grievances are complaints, issues or concerns which employees may wish to raise within the workplace. Grievances must be presented through an official, legally-binding procedure. 

ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) has a recommended Code of Practice for disciplinary and grievance procedures, known as ‘the Code’. The purpose of the Code is to lay out simple rules which both the employer and employee should follow to handle matters effectively.

Concerns that an employee may have to raise grievances about include:

• terms of employment
• working conditions
• unfair pay
• disagreements and disputes
• discrimination
• lack of statutory employment rights

It is important to always initiate informal procedures before moving towards raising a formal grievance - in the event that informal efforts are unsuccessful, it is important that both the employer and employee follow the relevant guidelines in the continuation of the case.