Energy organisation LondonEnergy has signed a voluntary trade union recognition agreement with Prospect, to enable collective pay bargaining.
The agreement, which was signed on 11 June 2018, recognises Prospect as the trade union representation for 300 LondonEnergy employees. This means that the union will be able to negotiate and have full consultation rights on matters such as pay, terms and conditions and organisational restructuring, should it occur in the future, on behalf of its members.
LondonEnergy will also provide facilities on-site for the trade union to operate from.
Historically, Prospect only represented senior engineers working at LondonEnergy. The new agreement, however, enables more employees to be represented, including employees, managers and supervisors who are based in the organisation’s offices.
This is the first formal trade union recognition agreement between LondonEnergy and Prospect.
Although operating as a private organisation, LondonEnergy is wholly owned by seven north London boroughs. When the organisation was formally incorporated around 2000, all its employees were subject to a transfer of undertakings (protection of employment) (TUPE) transfer. This meant that new management at LondonEnergy had no formal recognition arrangement with trade unions in place, and there was no evidence of a previous arrangement having existing.
Julie Flanagan, negotiations officer at Prospect, said: “In reality, they did recognise us because they negotiate pay with us every year; they consult with us on staff issues and we have regular joint meetings with management.
“Various drafts have gone backwards and forwards over the last 10 years and we never actually got there. Something has always happened. But in the new year, we finally got them to talk to us about a new recognition agreement, and we’ve finally got an agreed version.”
LondonEnergy was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.