Arbitration service Acas has ruled that airport operator BAA must award steelworkers at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 (T5) site an additional £1 an hour, but has resisted calls for the pay to be backdated for almost a year. The steelworkers had demanded extra money, back-dated to January 2005, to bring them in line with a pay rise won by electricians at the site.
Union Amicus argued that by agreeing to the pay rise for electricians, BAA had set a precedent for other trades to claim parity. However, although it ruled in favour of the steelworkers on the £1 an hour rise, Acas limited backdated pay to June and said the award was specific to T5.
