RESEARCH REPORT: DETERMINATIONS OF THE
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS AUTHORITY
| Volume 27 Number 3 | October 2002 |
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RESEARCH REPORT: DETERMINATIONS OF THE
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS AUTHORITY
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First, regression analyses were run on the simple yes-no question of whether remedies were or were not reduced for contributory misconduct.
In the Tribunal sample, remedies for successful grievants were reduced in 12 percent of cases overall. The first predictor (p<.0001) of whether a reduction of remedies was implemented or not was case type. A reduction of remedies was ordered in 27 percent of cases where grievants successfully protested dismissals for misconduct or poor performance. For all other successful grievances, a reduction was ordered in only five percent of cases.
In the misconduct and performance grouping, adjudicator identity emerged as a second tier, statistically significant factor (p<.0001). Six Tribunal Members - including three from the relatively small South Island contingent - were grouped by the statistical model as Members who (collectively) reduced remedies in 59 percent of successful dismissal for misconduct or performance cases. All other Members were grouped together as reducing remedies in less than 20 percent of equivalent cases.
Adjudicator identity also showed up as a secondary factor (p<.05) for the second grouping by case type - everything other than misconduct and performance dismissal - but the groupings were less clear cut. There was also less marked difference between them, reductions confined to the limited range of zero to 15 percent of successful grievances.
Did the reduction patterns mesh with the groupings of Tribunal Members in terms of average compensation awards? To some extent they did. For example, all but one of the Tribunal Members in the group averaging compensation awards of $6,638 are in the low reduction rate group for misconduct and performance dismissals. Overall, however, it would be an exaggeration to say that there were clear relationships between adjudicator's compensation award rates and their propensities for reducing remedies. More sophisticated analysis at another time might reveal more, but we are not in a position to make any conclusions along those lines in this research note.
In the Authority sample, a reduction of remedies occurred in just eight percent
of successful grievance cases. Case type was again the predictor (p=.0005).
In dismissals for misconduct (and the "dismissals - other" category),
reductions were ordered in 14 percent of successful grievance cases; there were
no reductions recorded outside of those two categories.
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