"Disappointing" employees having to resort to legal proceedings to get paid

Tuesday 08 June 2021

The Chair of Jersey's Employment and Discrimination Tribunal has voiced her disappointment over the fact many local employees are having to “resort to legal proceedings” to get paid.

Out of the 233 claims the Employment and Discrimination Tribunal received in 2020, notice pay, holiday pay and unpaid wages were the issues most frequently raised regarding breaches of contract.

The majority of the claims received were related to employment only, with 40 linked to employment and discrimination.

Pictured: The majority of claims received by the Tribunal were related to employment issues.

Employment claims often involve several different issues being raised at once. Breaches of contract were the main issue raised in 2020 with 230 claims, followed by unfair dismissal (74) and constructive dismissal (43), with 91 claim forms stating an issue ‘other’ than those.

Among the issues related to breaches of contract, 89 related to notice pay, 66 to holiday pay and 63 to unpaid wages.

In her foreword, Advocate Dr Elena Moran, who took over from Solicitor Hilary Griffin for the role of Chair in December 2020, commented: “While not all of these allegations were upheld, it is disappointing that there are still employees who need to resort to legal proceedings in order to get paid.”

“There were also 41 allegations that no payslips had been provided and 34 allegations that no contract of employment was provided,” she added.

Pictured: Breaches of contract were the main issue raised in the claim forms.

These breaches resulted in £50,126 being awarded in damages for breach of contract and £111,408 in compensation for breach of statutory rights, an increase on 2019.

Overall, the number of claims received by the EDT was slightly down from 250 in 2019. 59 of those included an allegation of discrimination, 40% less than in 2019 when there had been 98.

Dr Moran explained: “The reason for the overall drop in claims and the drop in work-related discrimination claims is not known but could be linked to the fact that many employees were not at work for significant parts of the year.”