RESEARCH REPORT: ADJUDICATION IN THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL
| Volume 24 Number 3 | October 1999 |
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RESEARCH REPORT: ADJUDICATION IN THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL
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Hopefully this paper has provided an interesting statistical introduction to Employment Tribunal decisions. There are, of course, many other avenues for analysis of the database of decisions, both mainstream paths and quirkier side trails. In this initial research report, I set out first to show the range of subjects dealt with in Tribunal adjudications, highlighting personal grievances, and particularly dismissal grievances, as constituting the major substantive workload of the Tribunal in its adjudication jurisdiction. I then moved on to examine how various characteristics of the case and of the parties to the case seem to be associated with the outcomes of cases.
In this context, I zeroed in particularly on the relationship between the parties' representation choices and adjudication decision outcomes. Correlation and regression tests showed that when parties, particularly employers, fail to appear at hearing, or do appear but without professional representation, they are generally less likely to be successful than when they appear with professional representation. The evidence is less clear cut, but there do seem to be circumstances in which parties are more likely to be successful when represented by a lawyer than when represented by a non-lawyer, though I am not in a position to say in any definitive way, why that is so. Under other circumstances, there appear to be no differences.
References
Couch, Tony (1998), Statistics and Comment, Proceedings of the New Zealand Law Society Employment Law Conference, Wellington, November 1998.
Dumbleton, Alastair (1996), The Employment Tribunal B Four Years On, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 21(1): 21-33.
Gardiner, Ralph (1993), Personal Grievance Mediation in the Employment Tribunal, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 18(3): 342-351.
Grills, Walter (1992), Dispute Resolution in the Employment Tribunal, Part One: Mediation, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 17(3): 333-346.
Grills, Walter (1993), Dispute Resolution in the Employment Tribunal, Part Two: Adjudication, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 18(1): 84-93.
McAndrew, Ian (1995), The New Zealand Employment Tribunal: A review and assessment, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 33(2): 37-50.
McAndrew, Ian, Dermott J. Dowling and Sean Woodward (1997-98), Gender Patterns in the New Zealand Employment Tribunal: Some Notes on Theory and Research, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 22(3)/23(1): 277-300.
Morris, Caroline (1996), An Investigation into Gender Bias in the Employment Institutions, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 21(1): 67-90.
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