Council ordered to pay £64k over cash incentives to leave collective bargaining

An employment tribunal has told the London Borough of Bromley to pay more than £64,000 in compensation to staff offered cash incentives to leave collective bargaining agreements.

The 18 employees are each to receive £3,600 after the tribunal ruled that an offer of £200 to each employee who signed a new contract was designed to achieve a ‘prohibited result’.

Bromley had decided to leave the national pay bargaining machinery and launch a local pay system, which included a provision that staff who failed a performance assessment would receive no pay increase for the years concerned.

The tribunal noted: “The offers had the prohibited result, namely that the claimants’ terms of employment, or any of those terms, will not (or will no longer) be determined by collective agreement negotiated by or on behalf of the union.“

Bromley though denied that the prohibited result was the sole or main purpose in making the offer and that it simply wished to attract staff to the new system, under which it felt it would be able to better manage its workforce and wages bill.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “The decision is a significant victory for our members at Bromley council who were effectively coerced into signing away their employment rights.

“It should send a strong signal to other local authorities that they cannot simply withdraw from collective bargaining by going behind the union’s back and making these types of offers.”