Discipline, Dismissals and Complaints to Employment Tribunals

Using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we investigate the rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals, and the incidence of unfair dismissal complaints to employment tribunals in the UK. Workplace rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals vary with age, gender, ethnic and occupational work‐force composition and workplace size, and, notably, are lower where trade union density is higher. Workplace practices reflecting a high‐commitment management style have limited impact on all three of our dependent variables, while the existence of formal discipline and dismissal procedures exerts no influence on whether any unfair dismissal claims are brought at the workplace.