The government has failed to name and shame a single employer four years after pledging to provide an online list of rogue bosses who refuse to pay workers money won at employment tribunal. In 2018, the government announced they would make the “largest upgrade in a generation to workplace rights”, adding they would deliver “the government’s commitment to build an economy that works for all”. As part of the announcement, they pledged to name and shame employers who failed to pay employment tribunal awards within a reasonable time on a database called the Employment Tribunal Naming Scheme. The idea, initially recommended by the Taylor review of modern working practices, was that naming rogue employers would shame them into paying tribunal claimants faster. A Freedom of Information request (FoI) revealed that after the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) pledge to name and shame employers in 2018, they were notified 3,713 times about bosses failing to pay successful claimants their money. However, they haven’t named a single employer in that time. The FoI also revealed that, on average, more than 50% of employers failed to pay all or any of the money won by claimants at employment tribunal 28 days after being told to do so. Leon (not his real name), a 39-year-old programmer from the north-west of England, has been chasing his former employer for six years and still hasn’t been paid in full. Leon is married with three children and worked for a media company, managing their website. Just before Christmas 2017, the company owed him nearly two months’ wages – £3,000 – but neglected to pay him. “It was so stressful because I needed to pay bills, I needed to buy food. I had to use my credit cards to buy gifts for the kids, but we couldn’t do anything we were planning to do,” he said. Leon chased the company for months, but they ignored his messages. So he took them to an employment tribunal and was awarded close to £10,000 in compensation. Despite being wealthy, Leon’s boss only agreed to pay in monthly instalments of a few hundred pounds, which he regularly fails to pay. “This is why I think that this system doesn’t work. Because he holds the money, and the enforcement agency said they couldn’t access the property.” “Those that beat the odds and win an award at tribunal face another hurdle: whether their employer will cheat them out of the award or refuse to pay,” said Julie Bishop, the director of the Law Centres Network. “The Employment Tribunal Naming Scheme is another gimmick that, to this date, has done nothing to increase the accountability of employers. The government needs to step in to re-balance the power between employers and workers, and to that end, they need to fund free legal assistance.” Bishop says that law centres, many of which have closed since 2010, are at their limit and that a job loss, workplace mistreatment or intimidation can lead to homelessness, poor health and family breakdown.
Bishops adds: “Millions of people are living in a justice gap where they neither qualify for legal aid nor can they afford legal representation. Those brave enough to take on their employer alone do so with the cards stacked against them.” A BEIS spokesperson did not explain why the Employment Tribunal Naming Scheme did not have a single name on it. They said they were committed to ensuring that workers received money they are owed and are protected from exploitation. They added: “Our unpaid employment tribunal awards penalty scheme has already successfully recovered over £6.5m of awards owed to individuals, and we retain the ability to name businesses if required.”