Hyo Eun Shin on why the employment tribunals system should be available to all

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’.

The world of work has moved on from the days when Dolly Parton’s song 9 to 5, an upbeat critique of corporate America, first became a hit.

Since then, there have been many hard-won improvements in workers’ rights in the UK, such as the introduction of a national minimum wage and legal protections against discrimination in the workplace.

But Dolly’s lyrics capture something many will still recognise today: the need to make a living, and the inherent power imbalance that exists between workers and those they work for.  

The Citizens Advice network in Scotland sees first-hand what that means for people who have been treated unfairly at work. Last year, work-related advice pages on our public advice site were viewed almost 135,000 times. In the same period, advisers in local Citizens Advice Bureaux supported thousands of people across the country with over 32,000 pieces of advice tailored to their individual needs and situation to help address problems at work.  

Early advice and resolution of workplace disputes will usually be beneficial for both workers and employers - clarifying everyone’s rights and responsibilities can reduce stress and the amount of time and money spent. But sometimes workers will need to turn to an employment tribunal to challenge injustices at work. This is central to our employment rights - because rights are worthless if they can’t be enforced.  

If you’ve been unfairly dismissed or discriminated against at work, had your wages withheld or been denied rest breaks, accessing an employment tribunal should not come at a cost.   

In 2013, the UK Government introduced fees for employment tribunals and employment appeal tribunals. This coincided with a significant fall in cases brought to tribunals and was found to have been unlawful and was quashed by the Supreme Court in 2017. However, prior to the recent general election, the UK government at the time proposed to re-introduce fees to the employment tribunal system.   

This clearly isn’t right. Tribunal fees would make it even harder for workers to access justice and protect themselves against unlawful practices. People are already facing multiple hurdles to pursuing a claim: legal aid solicitors are scarce in large areas of Scotland, and while trade unions might be able to help, many people can’t find solicitors with employment law expertise. So while employers tend to be represented by legal professionals, workers often end up facing their employer on their own – disadvantaging them from the outset.

Fear of retribution or victimisation, health issues, financial pressures and stress can leave people with no option but to give up pursuing justice. This is often worse for those whose employment rights are more likely at risk, such as disabled people, those in insecure or precarious work, migrant workers and pregnant women.  

If Scotland is to be a fair and just place to live and work, we can’t afford a system where Tribunal fees put workplace justice further out of people’s reach, so we strongly opposed these proposals. The new government’s manifesto promise of ‘delivering a new deal for working people’ we hope will consign these fees to the past once and for all.  

Hyo Eun Shin works in the Strong Communities team at Citizens Advice Scotland.

This column was first published in the Herald.