Companies face workplace disputes trap from October

Unwary employers can find themselves on a hiding to nothing if they fail to provide a formal written procedure for the resolution of disputes at workplace level by the beginning of October.
Industrial relations experts are warning that, in the absence of such a procedure, there may be an automatic initial presumption in favour of the worker in any dispute.
Government measures to promote the resolution of disputes at the workplace and so lighten the load on employment tribunals are due to take effect from 1 October. The Construction Industry Joint Council (CIJC) is seeking to produce an agreed standard procedure for the private sector of building and civil engineering.
But the latest meeting of the joint council reached an impasse over operative demands that the unions should have full representational rights in any workplace dispute hearing. The issue has now been referred back to the council's joint employer and union secretaries for resolution.
A special meeting of the CIJC is set to be called before October to finalise the new disputes procedures. "We are 95% there already," said a Construction Confederation spokesman.
Federation of Master Builders director of external affairs Andrew Large said: "We have had a disputes resolution procedure in place in our Batjic agreement with the TGWU since its inception. We have modified this to make it fully compliant with the regulations, which take effect in October."