Unpublished government research has called for opt-out class actions – where a group of people, rather than an individual, bring a claim to court – to be piloted in employment tribunals, to deal with the thousands of discrimination and equal pay cases slowing down the tribunal system.
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The research, discovered by the Law Society Gazette, revealed that the majority of new tribunal cases involve a group bringing the same or a very similar claim against the same employer, mainly local authorities and the NHS.
The public will soon begin to lose confidence in the tribunal’s ability to provide timely redress for those who have suffered discrimination in employment, should the backlog not be dealt with, said the report.
