IF YOU HAVE ever had the misfortune of visiting the 20th floor of the Pioneer Centre in Prince Edward, you will know it to be a miserable place. A long, grey corridor joins scores of rooms where people slug out disputes with their employers.
Or so the theory goes. The reality is that the majority come to a settlement. Exactly how they got to this conclusion is another matter - one which will hopefully be addressed in a Judicial working party review due to be completed at the end of the year.
In an unusual show of agreement, workers and employers are voicing their discontent over a system that should offer them simple legal redress over labour disputes.
The sense is that they are under pressure to settle before the merits of their case are even debated.
After a number of visits to the Labour Tribunal, it is hard to subscribe to the view that it offers a 'quick, informal and inexpensive means to settle monetary disputes' between employers and workers.
This may have been the case 30 years ago when it was first set up. Today its key elements can be better described as 'lengthy, frustrating, confusing and unpredictable'.
