The right to be accompanied at a hearing.

Section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 gives the right to a worker who is required or invited by their employer to attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing, and who reasonably asks to be accompanied.

It reaches further than employees. Workers count, and so do agency workers and home workers, as section 13 defines them. For an agency worker, both the agency and the business they work for count as the employer.

• A disciplinary hearing is one that could end in a formal warning or some other action against the worker, or that confirms a warning or action already given, as an appeal can.
• A grievance hearing is one about the employer doing a duty it owes the worker, such as under the contract or the law.
• An investigatory meeting isn’t covered. The Acas Code says there’s no legal right to be accompanied at one, though your own procedure may allow it.

The Acas Code says the letter inviting someone to a disciplinary meeting should give its time and place and tell them they have the right to be accompanied. The same right applies at a grievance meeting about a duty the employer owes them, and at the appeal meeting in either case.

The worker has to make a reasonable request. The Code says what is reasonable depends on the circumstances of each case. The worker should give the employer enough time to deal with the companion coming, and where possible say in advance who it is and whether they’re a fellow worker or from a union. They can change their choice of companion if they wish.

The worker chooses one companion, who must be:

• a fellow worker, meaning another of the employer’s workers;
• an official employed by a trade union; or
• a trade union official whom the union has certified as able to act as a companion.

The Acas Code says an employer must agree to a request for any companion from these groups. The request doesn’t have to be in writing or made within a set time.

• Address the hearing, if the worker wishes, to put the worker’s case, sum it up, and respond to any view given at the hearing.
• Confer with the worker during it.
• They can’t answer questions on the worker’s behalf, or stop the employer explaining its case.
• Time off. An employer must let one of its own workers take time off during working hours to act as a companion for a colleague.

If the chosen companion can’t make the time the employer proposes, the worker can propose another time. As long as it’s reasonable and within five working days after the day the employer proposed, the employer must move the hearing to it.

• A complaint to a tribunal. A worker whose employer fails, or threatens to fail, to allow a companion or to move the hearing can complain to an employment tribunal. The time limit in section 11 is now six months. Our guide to tribunal time limits explains when that started.
• Compensation of up to two weeks’ pay, with a week’s pay capped at the statutory limit.
• No detriment, no dismissal. Section 12 protects a worker who uses or tries to use the right, and a worker who accompanies or tries to accompany a colleague. A dismissal for either reason is unfair, with no qualifying period.