Council staff win over incremental pay rises


The Court of Appeal has ruled that Nottingham City Council was wrong to deny several hundred of its employees the right to incremental pay increases with effect from April 2011.


The local authority workers, backed by the public service union UNISON, successfully challenged the council’s 2011 decision to stop them receiving pay rises as they moved up salary scales linked to their jobs.


The long-running case saw the council staff initially take their case to an employment tribunal in Nottingham.


UNISON claimed the council was guilty of the unlawful deduction of wages because staff had a contractual right to incremental wage progression, and therefore the pay freeze was a breach of contract.


The case was heard in 2015, but the workers’ claims were dismissed. UNISON, working with Thompsons Solicitors, appealed the decision at an Employment Appeal Tribunal, which found in their favour. However, the council then appealed against that judgment and so the case ended up at the Court of Appeal.


UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “The judges have found unanimously in favour of the council employees. Nottingham City Council was completely in the wrong to try to prevent its staff from getting the pay rises they were due.


“In any organisation, where salary scales are linked to jobs, employees’ contracts of employment state that each year, as they gain more experience and move up a point, their wages should increase.”


www.unison.org.uk/news/2018/04/court-appeal-pay-victory-nottingham-city-council-employees