Heran Limbachia & Others v Serco Limited — 2025

Employment Judge Tueje, sitting with Ms Mitchell and Ms Oldfield, heard this consolidated multi-claimant matter at London South by CVP on 4-6 June 2025 with deliberations in chambers on 27 June 2025. There are 148 claimants (listed in the annex to the judgment), all of whom were members of the Prison Officers Association (POA) working at the Gatwick Immigration Removal Centres at the material time. The claimants were represented by Ms Ibbotson of counsel and the respondent (Serco Limited) by Mr Carr KC.

The claimants complained that Serco breached section 145B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 when it implemented the 2023 annual pay increase on 5 May 2023 (an offer made directly to employees rather than through collective bargaining with the recognised union). At the start of the hearing, the Tribunal refused the claimants' late application to amend the list of issues to add a second alleged offer/implementation date of 26 May 2023, on the basis of substantial prejudice to the respondent.

The unanimous judgment of the Tribunal was that the complaints under section 145B of the 1992 Act were well-founded. The respondent was ordered under sections 145E(2)(b) and (3) to pay each of the 148 named claimants the statutory penalty of £5,128. PDF text was truncated from 58,824 to 15,000 chars and the substantive findings of fact and law are not fully visible.