After a year in which the number of Employment Tribunal cases has risen at an unprecedented level, HR professionals and employment law solicitors are expressing their concerns over the current Tribunal system. Through the twelve months to July 2010, the number of accepted cases was 236,000 which represented a massive hike on the 151,000 accepted in the preceding year. As HR professionals struggle to cope with the massive numbers of employee grievances, employment law solicitors are also expressing concern.

Employment Tribunal cases are at their highest ever level thanks partly to increased redundancies brought about by the recession. As a result, employment law solicitors have voiced their concerns in a survey commissioned by the Employment Lawyers Association (the ELA).

The main concern that employment law solicitors across the country appeared to express was a lack of consistency with the Employment Tribunal’s approach, efficiency and quality in different parts of the UK. Their responses to the survey suggested where the problems lie and where improvements might be made in order to save time and costs for both claimants and employers alike.

Sadly, a huge 83% of the employment law solicitors who responded said they did not feel the Employment Tribunal’s approach was consistent across the UK. 93% believed that a more consistent approach would be universally beneficial.

A large proportion of the employment law solicitors who participated in the survey claimed that the lengthy and costly process were the biggest problems with the current system. Many were in support of allowing large scale equal pay claims to be handled by one single Employment Tribunal office. The vast majority also supported the introduction of a system of improved claim tracking, with the possibility of introducing a web portal similar to that used in low value road accident claims. According to employment law solicitors, this would improve efficiency and reduce costs.

The government, equality campaigners and employment law solicitors have all welcomed the Equality Act as a giant leap towards stronger discrimination law and the simplification of pre-existing legislation.

Employment law solicitors are welcoming the forthcoming introduction of the new law, because there was a feeling among many that streamlining the previous legislation needed to be a priority. Some employment law solicitors felt that previously complex legislation was actually hindering progress towards greater equality rather than helping it.

For the most part, the act will come into force in October and employment law solicitors want everyone to be aware of the changes. The advice is to prepare now before it’s too late.

From October it will be illegal for businesses to ask job candidates questions relating to their health if it is unrelated to the job. Employers will no longer be able to use contractual clauses which bar employees from discussing their salary and bonuses. And employers will have the option to favour candidates with an under-represented ‘protected characteristic’ if two equal job candidates are found. The term ‘protected characteristic’ covers age, sex, religious beliefs, sexuality, nationality, race and disability.

Employment law solicitors are welcoming the addition of legislation that will allow employees to launch discrimination claims on two grounds if they feel that they were victims of discrimination owing to them having two or more of the protected characteristics. The spectrum of discrimination law will also be broadened to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of a person’s association with a person with a protected characteristic.~ Discrimination law will be expanded to protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of their association with a person with a protected characteristic.~ The law relating to discrimination will also be extended to include discrimination against individuals based on their association with someone with a protected characteristic.} For example treating an employee unfavourably on account of them having a disabled child would be illegal. Similarly, it will also be illegal to discriminate against a person who is wrongly assumed to have a protected characteristic.

These are just some of the many facets of the new law. There will be many other changes and employment law solicitors will be able to advise on incorporating the law into the workplace. Employment law solicitors advice firms to review their equality policy and recruitment process now to avoid problems in October.

Internships have been getting a bad press of late, with employment law solicitors and other campaigners claiming they are exploitative and often illegal. Whilst the employment law solicitors react angrily and express fear over the constant rise of the internship, the companies who use interns and very often, even the interns themselves, would argue that it’s more about experience than exploitation. So is it exploitation or experience?

Some industries are better known than others for their use of internships. The fashion industry is one. In the press recently, former fashion interns have claimed they were made to work twelve hour days, and longer, for months on end, with no offer of a paid job afterwards. Indeed, some interns claim they have worked for free in fashion houses where they have outnumbered the paid staff. This shows that too many companies in many industries have begun to rely on the intern for unpaid work.

Employment law solicitors claim that, according to minimum wage legislation, companies could be acting illegally by neglecting to pay their interns. They claim that merely calling somebody an intern does not mean a company doesn’t have to pay them. If a person is engaged on a regular basis for an extended period of time, doing work that is core to the company then they should be considered an employee and paid accordingly. In the past, there have been some cases where former interns have taken their case to the employment tribunal and won backdated minimum wage pay. Sadly, these cases have failed to set the precedent that was hoped and the situation has barely changed.

Campaigners claim that internships are actually responsible for the problem they claim to resolve: graduate unemployment. As more and more graduates work for free, fewer and fewer paid entry-level roles are left. At the end of the day, would you pay a new graduate to do a job when another would do it for free?

Employment law solicitors are working to raise awareness of the need to comply with minimum wage legislation. Additionally, they and many campaigners are calling for a fundamental change to the system, for example restricting how long a person can work unpaid. This, they hope, would lead to higher retention of former interns in paid, permanent roles.