Arbitration and Full Industrial Tribunal - Case Study Example

Interestingly, although the claimant claims that his name was crossed out on the list of employees, he was allowed to return to work the following week and was not asked to leave.  Instead, the allegations made against him were presented at that time.  It would be interesting to determine who crossed his name out – assuming that this occurred – and why.

If the claimant’s allegations are proven to be true then it would appear that there has been a conspiracy to remove him from the company.  How high up the conspiracy would go is not clear, but on the face of things would appear to involve the manager on duty that day since the work schedule has been defaced, and this has not been queried (at least not as far as one can tell, based upon the article).

Since the article does not give the company’s side of the dispute it is difficult to gauge the veracity of the claimant’s account.  However, clearly, they feel there is a case to be answered since they are prepared to go to arbitration.

2. if you were the manager, what could you have done to avoid this stage of the proceedings?
   
   

The greatest difficulty the manager has in this situation is obtaining a truthful account of what happened.  The claimant did not seek his line manager’s advice at the time that he alleges he saw his name crossed out.  Nor would it appear that until matters had reached a head did the claimant make any allegations of discrimination or unfair treatment from his colleagues.

Assuming that I was aware of the tensions brewing in the kitchen my first priority would have been to prevent an escalation of the matter.  There is at least one person in the organization who does not respect other members of staff, namely the person who the claimant alleges swore at him.  Had I been made aware of this I would have given the offender a verbal warning and made it clear that no one comes to work to have their self-esteem undermined.

Depending on how widespread such behavior appeared to be I would also initiate a round of anti-discrimination continuing professional development classes, focusing particularly upon the issues in our specific workplace.

Also, it would appear that there is a shortage of staff in the kitchen or at least under-employment of some members of staff and over-employment of others – namely the claimant.  This suggests that a time and motion study needs to be undertaken to ensure that there are sufficient hands on deck and that employees can complete the tasks to keep the business functioning.

3. this is a union situation and has moved to arbitration. recognizing your characteristics, what method of dispute resolution would you take? you could agree it should go to arbitration or should have been dealt with differently. you may choose whichever way you want. however, you must explain why you choose this method of resolution from teh union and why or why not, what would be the worst method?
   
   

Although arbitration is less expensive than a full industrial tribunal, I would opt for an in-house resolution, the primary reason being to reduce negative publicity.  Not only is there a grievance matter here, but there may also be a disciplinary issue.  I would be tempted to return to the drawing board and exhaust our internal systems before handing it over to arbitration.