River City dispute reaches key stage

Attempts to avoid a full-blown dispute on BBC Scotland’s River City will resume in January.

The failure of the latest talks led to a decision to refer the dispute to a meeting at national level which will involve senior union and management representatives.

The disageement centres on unacceptable increases in working time which affect both freelance and staff members.

Problems were anticipated when earlier this year BBC Scotland's drama department changed the format of the soap from two half hour episodes to a one hour drama type format.

BBC managers were adamant that a move to single camera shooting was essential to respond to viewers "changing tastes."

The revisions meant the schedule changed from a five day week to an 11 day fortnight with some staff being expected to take their annual leave entitlement every twelfth day.

It also saw in-house DOP's (director of photography) being dropped from the production in favour of external staff who, it is reported, were flown up with all expenses and accommodation provided by BBC Scotland.

BBC Scotland is also seeking to remove some of the conditions to which permanent BBC staff who work on the production are entitled.

Early meetings between BECTU and management saw the BBC concede that they would end the practice of demanding that staff take their annual leave on, what BECTU argued were, normal days off.

However, agreement could not be reached on ending the 11 day fortnight or on the BBC's calls to end travel time payments, which permanent staff are entitled to, for travelling from their base in Glasgow to the studios in Dumbarton.

In an effort to reduce the pressure of work overall, the BBC offered to engage a third shooting crew which would allow them to introduce a three-week shooting cycle by having a "prep week"; the proposal would have reduced hours every third week but management did not propose to pay freelance and contract camera staff for work into this third week.

Filming of the next block starts in early February and BECTU believes that scheduling an 11 day fortnight of around 12 hours a day for the fifteen weeks of the next block would be excessive and potentially injurious for crew.

Worse still, BECTU believes that management will not be able to keep to these excessive hours, as hours on the last block spiralled out of control.

"In the last few months of shooting, six day working became the norm every week as management struggled to achieve their editorial ambitions at the same time as trying to meet their corporate targets of 10% budget cuts," commented BECTU’s Scottish Organiser, Paul McManus.

“Now they tell us that single camera shooting didn't work so in the next block they are returning to cross shooting but they still need the extra days of filming. They are also going back to using in-house DOP's.

“We have made it clear to BBC Scotland that it is unacceptable for them to attack members' hours and conditions in order to pay for their editorial gambles."

BECTU is also concerned that these changes are the tip of the “Creative Futures iceberg” whereby the BBC tries to maintain its programming commitments in Scotland while losing around 200 staff as a result of the current five year cuts plan.

BECTU, joined by the NUJ and Unite, has been raising concerns over increased workloads on staff across Scotland as a result of the cuts. BECTU members have already instructed the union to ballot for industrial action if BBC Scotland seeks to impose compulsory redundancies in the New Year.

BBC Scotland will be issuing contracts for the new block of River City in the next few weeks and members are advised to keep in contact with BECTU for updates on the dispute.