Collective Agreements

[Thanks to Ed McFarlane of EEF for providing this case summary]

The EAT (Silber J) has handed down its decision in Worrall v Wilmott Dixon Partnership, which is authority for the proposition that:

• to incorporate a term of a Collective Agreement into a contract, the term must be brought to the employees' notice or agreed (paragraph 20). It isn't enough for the term simply to be in a readily-available document, such as a handbook. On the facts, a term in a Collective Agreement providing for enhanced redundancy pay was held to have not been incorporated into the Claimants' contracts, as there was no evidence of it being brought to the Claimants' notice or agreed.
  
  
• on a TUPE transfer, an incorporated Collective Agreement is frozen at the transfer, so transferred employees cannot benefit from future changes to the original Agreement. However, if legislation affects the original Agreement, then it also affects the transferred Agreement. In this case legislation would have deprived the Claimants - transferred Council staff - of enhanced redundancy pay, if a term to that effect had been incorporated into their contractsOn a TUPE transfer, an incorporated Collective Agreement is frozen at the transfer, so transferred employees cannot benefit from future changes to the original Agreement. However, if legislation affects the original Agreement, then it also affects the transferred Agreement. In this case legislation would have deprived the Claimants - transferred Council staff - of enhanced redundancy pay, if a term to that effect had been incorporated into their contracts.