TUC report focuses on unions' tribunal successes

The latest TUC survey on employment tribunals shows that unions achieve very high success rates when they pursue cases.

Unions responding to the survey had won more than 81% of the claims they had supported to tribunals. However, taking into account claims successfully settled without the need for a tribunal decision, the report says unions had a stunning 95% success rate.

The TUC has used the results of the survey, Focus on employment tribunals, to argue that if the government really wants to reduce the number of claims going to tribunals, then it would be better and more fairly achieved by strengthening trade union rights.

TUC general secretary elect Brendan Barber says that rather than cutting back on the ability of workers to lodge claims "the government should act to give more employees the benefit of union representation at work."

Barber backs up his argument with statistics from the survey which show that while the number of tribunal claims overall have been increasing (by 7% in the last two years alone) the same period saw a reduction of 32% in the number of claims supported by unions.

The TUC says that this demonstrates that unions are better at ensuring that disputes get resolved in the workplace, rather than ending up at a tribunal.

* Focus on employment tribunals, tel: 020 7636 4030 or visit www.tuc.org.uk