Struck Out: Why Employment Tribunals Fail Workers and What Can be Done

by David Renton

Every year, over a hundred thousand workers bring claims to an Employment Tribunal. The settling of disputes between employers and unions has been exchanged by many for individual litigation. In Struck Out, barrister David Renton gives a practical and critical guide to the system. In doing so he punctures a number of media myths about the Tribunals. Far from bringing flimsy cases, two-thirds of claimants succeed at the hearing. And rather than paying lottery-size jackpots, average awards are just a few thousand pounds – scant consolation for a loss of employment and often serious psychological suffering. The book includes a critique of the present government’s proposals to reform the Tribunal system.Employment Tribunals are often seen by workers as the last line of defence against unfairness in the workplace. Struck Out shows why we can't rely on the current system to deliver fairness and why big changes are needed.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 8, 2012

About the author

David "Dave" Renton is a British academic historian and barrister.

He was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was the marxist historian, Dona Torr. His grandfather was the shoe designer Kurt Geiger. One uncle was an activist in Equity, the actors' trade union, while another was the Conservative MP Tim Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry. He was educated at all-boys private boarding school Eton College where he became a member of the Labour Party. He then studied history at St John's College, University of Oxford.

Renton received his PhD from the University of Sheffield for a thesis on fascism and anti-fascism in Britain after the Second World War ( The attempted revival of British Fascism: Fascism and Anti-Fascism, 1945-51 ) that was turned into the book Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s . He also became an academic historian and sociologist, teaching at universities including Nottingham Trent, Edge Hill and Rhodes University and Johannesburg University in South Africa.

Since 2009 Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London and has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, especially concerning trade union rights and the protection of free speech.

He was for twenty-two years (1991-2013) a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and he has published over twenty books on fascism, anti-fascism, and the politics of the left.