Maintenance employees who work for property organisation CBRE at the Royal Berkshire Hospital are to receive a minimum 5% pay rise.
Employees, who are also members of trade union GMB, will receive a 5% pay increase awarded as back pay in their December salary. This has been calculated as a 1% pay rise per year, consolidated over a five-year period between 2012 and 2017.
The 11 affected GMB members will receive between £700 and £1,400 depending on their job role.
The pay increase was agreed after this group of employees was unable to benefit from the NHS’ annual 1% pay rise following the privatisation of maintenance work within the healthcare trust in 2012. This meant that maintenance employees were no longer employed by the NHS, as they were moved to CBRE under a transfer of undertakings (protection of employment) (TUPE) arrangement, so were no longer entitled to NHS pay increases.
Nikki Dancey, regional officer at GMB, said: “The battle has finally been won for our members at the Royal [Berkshire] Hospital but GMB is well aware that this situation is common across the NHS. There are thousands of [employees] contracted out of the NHS that are not getting the pay rises they would have been entitled to if they still worked for the NHS.
“GMB knows that these [employees] are a vital and integral part of the NHS workforce and help to ensure it operates effectively and efficiently, and GMB is committed to supporting them.”
CBRE was unavailable for comment at time of publication.