NEC Report to BECTU 2003 Conference paragraphs 22-57

Membership

22 Branch officers continue to be provided with a quarterly report showing the movements in their branch over the previous quarter. These reports show cessations, rejoins and transfers between branches. The NEC and divisional officers are supplied monthly with statistical reports showing the movements in divisions.

23 During 2002 the Miller Technology database installed in March 1999 has remained stable and the key functions of the system of collecting subscriptions, updating records and adding new members' information are now being carried out efficiently. As with all computer systems, it will need further upgrading throughout 2003.

24 The number of members with unknown addresses has dropped below 1,000 for the first time. A statistical breakdown of the membership as at 31 December 2002 is given in Appendix C.

Proposition 11/03 (AP13) Membership records

That this annual conference instructs the National Executive Committee to place a greater priority on the quality of the union's membership records and administration, to ensure that the union retains its existing membership, recruits new members, and receives its due income.

Kingswood Warren
25 At its meeting on the 26 January 2003, the National Executive Committee considered a report from AGS Gerry Morrissey on the difficulties the union was experiencing over the definition of a paid-up member in rule 11. It was clear that there was confusion at branch level over "paid-up" members (i.e. those with no more than eight weeks of arrears) and "current" members (i.e. those with up to six months of arrears). This confusion could be resolved if there were a single rule book definition of paid-up, namely a member with no more than six months of arrears. The NEC endorsed the report, and agreed accordingly to submit a proposed rule change to the 2003 annual conference in a special rules session as provided by rule 45(b).

Proposition 12/03 (SRS 2) Definition of paid-up member

That this annual conference in a special rules session approves the following alteration to rule under rule 45(b):
Rule 11(a)
Delete "eight weeks" and insert "six months"; delete last sentence. Consequentially,
in rule 12(a) delete "eight weeks" and insert "six months", and
in rule 12(b) delete "eight weeks but less than"

National Executive Committee

Membership cards

26 In January 2003 all members should have received new credit card style membership cards together with the BECTU Benefits and Services Handbook outlining the main and fringe benefits of BECTU membership. The membership card retains validity until 2008 subject to the member remaining in benefit.

27 In line with the Mapping the Membership exercise reported to last year's conference, with their membership card members also received an equality monitoring form. At the time of writing 5,500 have been returned. Details of those members' ethnic background and whether or not they identify as disabled have been recorded confidentially on the membership database. A supplementary report will be given.

28 The NEC has drawn up guidance for branches on data protection: see Appendix D.

Life and honorary members

29 The National Executive Committee has awarded life membership of BECTU to the following members during 2002-2003: Debra Bowring, Tony Cridlin, Derek Holding, Michael Kennedy, Iain Lumsden, Colin Manning, Martin Gordon, John Ramsden, Terry Waddington

30 The NEC is recommending that the 2003 conference award honorary membership to Stanley Forman and Robert Albury.

The BECTU Staff Retirement Scheme

31 BECTU continues to operate a final salary scheme for its employees. Major changes were made to the benefits of that scheme following the adverse actuarial review which was presented in December 2001/January 2002 and these were reported to the 2002 annual conference. The General Secretary on behalf of the National Executive Committee has obtained legal advice and that legal advice suggests that at least two previous advisers to the BECTU Staff Retirement Scheme have been negligent in the manner in which they have discharged their duties. They are the actuaries, and the reason they have been negligent is that they reported the scheme had a greater MFR funding than was actually the case in the actuarial review, and the investment managers because they consistently, for a period of three years, gave the wrong and misleading report about our investment return.

32 The National Executive Committee and the Trustees of the BECTU Staff Retirement Scheme have now embarked on a joint legal action against the actuaries and the investment managers in order to sue for damages and losses incurred by the scheme. It is hoped that further information will be available and a verbal supplementary report can be made.

BECTU's staffing

33 The National Executive Committee at its meeting on the 13 October 2002 agreed to start the process for the election of BECTU's General Secretary. Details of this were sent out in Branch Circular 638. Roger Bolton was the only candidate nominated, and was therefore elected unopposed. The independent scrutineer's report of the election was published to branches in Branch Circular 641 dated 24 January 2003.

34 Assistant General Secretary Marilyn Goodman tendered her resignation as an employee of BECTU in the Autumn of 2002. Her employment with BECTU came to an end on the 31 December 2002. The National Executive Committee therefore also announced at its meeting on the 13 October 2002 an election for the position of Assistant General Secretary by members of the Laboratories, London Production and Regional Production divisions, to run simultaneously with the General Secretary election. Martin Spence was the only candidate nominated and was therefore elected unopposed. The independent scrutineer's report of this election was also published to branches in Branch Circular 641.

35 Trish Lavelle, who was employed as BECTU's Training Officer, left BECTU's employment in August 2002 to take up a more senior position with the Communication Workers Union.

36 Jim Carroll, Andrea Church and Ann Millington left BECTU's employment in May 2002, June 2002 and September 2002 respectively.

37 John Khan, a long-standing member of the union's finance team, retired in December 2002.

38 The following individuals have been recruited to BECTU's staff during the last year: Brian Kelly (Training Officer), Natasha Andrews (National Official), Rob Newland (National Official), Nigel Mason (National Official), Anna Kruthoffer (National Official), Tom MacShane (Finance Assistant), Judith Coulthurst (secretary), Eve Kenny (Database Information Clerk).

The pay of all BECTU staff was increased by 2% from the 1 January 2003.

40 The gender balance of BECTU's employees is given in the following table:

Grade Men Women
General Secretary 1 (100%) 0 (0%)
Assistant General Secretary 2 (100%) 0 (0%)
Supervisory Officials 4 (80%) 1 (20%)
National Officials 11(79%) 3 (21%)
Organising Official 0 (0%) 1 (100%)
Specialist Officials 2 (50%) 2 (50%)
Project Manager 0 (0%) 1 (100%)
Project Administrator 0 (0%) 1 (100%)
Project Worker 0 (0%) 1 (100%)
Senior Secretarial 0 (0%) 4 (100%)
Secretarial 0 (0%) 9 (100%)
Senior Clerical 2 (100%) 0 (0%)
Clerical 4 (40%) 6 (60%)
Total 26 (47%) 29 (53%)


Federation of Entertainment Unions

41 BECTU has continued to play an active role in the Federation of Entertainment Unions. The FEU has continued to campaign on issues of joint concern, such as the Communications Bill and the future of the film industry. It has also had several meetings with the Chief Executives of the BBC, ITC and the Radio Authority. The Professional Footballers Association was admitted to membership of the FEU at its February meeting. At the same meeting it was decided not to admit the Communication Workers Union as a member of the FEU at this time.

General Federation of Trade Unions

42 BECTU is now in its second year of affiliation to the GFTU. When it was decided to affiliate to the GFTU there were really two overriding reasons. The first, the excellent training courses that are offered by the GFTU and members have taken considerable advantage of these during 2002/2003. The second important reason for affiliation was to have access to meeting room facilities in central London. Whilst this has worked well for daytime meetings there have been problems in respect of gaining access to the GFTU building on evenings and at weekends. At the time of writing this report we are seeking to resolve these difficulties with the GFTU and have not yet paid our 2003 affiliation fee.

Trades Union Congress etc

43 BECTU's delegation to the 2002 Trades Union Congress was as follows: Tony Lennon, Turlough MacDaid, Jack Amos and Rose McDonald. The two motions submitted by BECTU were:

Pensions

In the light of the recent examples of employers ending or reducing the benefits of company pension schemes; of the spate of negative publicity about the future of occupational pensions; and of the consequent concerns on pensions felt by workers in all sectors; Congress calls on the General Council to reinforce its campaigning on pension issues, encompassing the following elements:

  • The aim that all workers should have access to a secure income in retirement that enables them at least to maintain a standard of living comparable to their final years of employment.
  • The need to protect and modernise good final salary schemes; to promote good defined contribution schemes; and to work to make a success of stakeholder pensions.
  • The principle that employers have a shared long-term responsibility for decent pension provision.
  • That employers should be able to require workers to become members of any final salary scheme operated by that employer.
  • The need to examine the continuing impact of the new minimum funding requirement (MFR) and the new accounting standard FRS17 but also to counter exaggerated claims about the supposed drawbacks of final salary schemes. Opposition to contribution holidays or reductions by employers.
  • The need for minimum compulsory employer contributions to all forms of occupational pension, including stakeholder schemes; and with the specific inclusion of freelance and casual workers.
  • The need to highlight and oppose any negative implications for occupational pensions arising from any proposed introduction of a flexible retirement age.

Extending Employment Rights to Atypical Workers

Congress supports the right of all atypical workers (including freelances, casuals and self-employed individual workers) to have access to the provisions of employment legislation in the UK. Congress notes that many such individuals maybe atypical workers not by choice but because of the lack of permanent jobs in the sectors in which they work.

Congress regrets the present confused state of UK employment law, in which some entitlements apply to "employees"; some apply to "workers"; and where the definition of "worker" - despite the ruling of the European Court in BECTU's case on the Working Time Regulations - is still being interpreted in a restrictive way by Employment Tribunals.

Congress therefore calls on the General Council to campaign for a broad, inclusive and consistent definition of "employment relationship" - drawing on the inclusive approach already taken in health and safety legislation, discrimination legislation and under the Acquired Rights Directive - to be applied to all instruments of UK employment law.

Both motions were composited and carried as part of the composite.

44 BECTU's delegations to the following 2002 conferences were composed as follows: Scottish Trades Union Congress (Turlough MacDaid, Paul McManus, Kate Walker, Mary Corner), Wales TUC Annual Conference (Heidi Williams, David Bumford), TUC Disability Conference (Ann Pointon, Turlough MacDaid, Angie Scurr, Cyra Deaville), TUC Women's Conference (Trish Lavelle, Edna Hewitson, Angela Knight, Rose McDonald, Rebecca Whitehead, Belinda Hale), TUC Black Workers' Conference (Rose McDonald, Fred Campbell, Alvin Adjei, Najla el Sharif), TUC Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Conference (Gurdev Kaur, John Lewis and Lawrence Van Reiss).

45 BECTU is represented on the Executive Committee, Creative and Leisure Industries Committee, Public Services Committee, Race Relations Committee, Transport Industries Committee, and Pensioners Network of SERTUC (Jack Amos, Mark David-Gray, Phil Hooley, Jenni Boswell-Jones, Rose McDonald, Joyce Williams, Tony Lennon, Stuart Smith, Bill Whittemore, Nicky Allan, Kate Elliott, Gino Najera).

Proposition 13/03 (AP19) Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

That this annual conference, in the interest of equal opportunities, lobbies the TUC to recognise Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as individual nations in their paperwork and policies, and ceases to refer to these nations as either TUC 'regions', or 'regions' of England.

Glasgow Theatres

Labour Party

46 BECTU was represented at the 2002 Labour Party Conference held in Blackpool by the President, Tony Lennon, AGS Gerry Morrissey and Treasurer Turlough MacDaid.

47 BECTU was represented at the 2002 Scottish Labour Party by Turlough MacDaid and at the 2002 Wales Labour Party by David Donovan and Gwil Owen.

48 At its meeting on 9 March 2003 the National Executive Committee resolved to reduce the level of BECTU's affiliation to the Labour Party from 11,000 members to 8,000 members.

Proposition 14/03 (AP22) Political fund

That this annual conference notes that the Labour government:

  1. is involved in an increasing number of confrontations with public sector workers seeking better pay and conditions;
  2. is continuing to pursue policies of privatisation and cuts, and ignoring popular demands for return of services such as the railways to democratic control;
  3. has failed to improve educational standards while making it harder for working people to get access to a full education;
  4. has continually sought advisors from the ranks of wealthy employers, rather than from representatives of the unions that fund the Labour Party.
Conference therefore instructs the National Executive Committee:
  1. to look for alternative electoral organisations and individuals that are prepared to represent the interests of union members in Parliament;
  2. to report to members on what such organisations and individuals exist;
  3. to offer members the chance to vote on whether BECTU should continue with affiliation to the Labour Party or should open up its political fund to support those organisations and individuals that better represent our members whether on a national or local level.

Bush

Proposition 15/03 (AP21) Labour Party and Northern Ireland

That this annual conference calls on the Labour Party to acknowledge the right of anyone to be a member of the Labour Party, and no longer to discriminate against people living in Northern Ireland.

Belfast General

Public policy

49 BECTU continues to contribute to public policy debates wherever relevant to our members. Most such submissions are posted on the BECTU website.

Broadcasting

50 The major issue has been the Government's Communications Bill. BECTU produced a general response to the Bill which was forwarded to Government in July 2002. We had earlier given written and verbal evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill chaired by Lord Puttnam.

51 Since the Bill has begun its progress through Parliament, BECTU has focused on three specific areas of concern:

  • on Regional ITV, the need to strengthen the regulations governing regional programming production;
  • on Ownership, opposition to the proposed lifting of the bar on non-EU (i.e. American) ownership of UK broadcasters and opposition to the lifting of cross-media regulations which have previously prevented News International or its affiliates from owning Channel 5;
  • on Independent Production, the need to maintain the current 25% quota arrangements rather than suffer any further rolling back of permanent employment in broadcasting.

52 The union has produced and circulated briefings to MPs and Peers and has participated in Parliamentary lobbying jointly with the other media unions.

Proposition 16/03 (AP23) Communications Bill

That this annual conference deplores the continuing trend to cut back on the quality and quantity of programme-making in the regions, and is particularly concerned that this will accelerate with the implementation of the Communications Bill.

Northern Freelance

Film policy

53 Contributions to the union's lobbying on film policy have included:

  • a submission to the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry into Film Policy
  • meetings with the Film Council on its proposals on low to medium budget productions (the Relph Report) and on a general strategy for the film industry (as set out in Building a Sustainable UK Film Industry).

54 Other specific film policy issues arising during the year have included the removal of tax relief for television productions (while retaining it for film) and developments on GATS (the agreement governing international trade in services).

Employment protection

55 A significant development has been the Government's consultation on employment status, to which BECTU made a detailed response as well as participating in discussions on the TUC response.

56 BECTU's concerns focused on the difficulties faced by freelance and casual workers in obtaining access to employment protection rights (e.g. on working time) and on the need for a new more inclusive definition of 'worker' which would include all such individuals.

57 Other employment protection work has included a submission on agency workers and a discussion with the DTI on trade union recognition legislation as it affects freelances.

Proposition 17/03 (AP26) Working time

That this annual conference instructs the National Executive Committee to commission research on the ways employers seek to avoid their obligations to provide paid holidays from day one of employment and to monitor the methods used in 2003 to circumvent the 48 hour week.

Post Production & Facilities

Amendment

Delete "commission" and insert "undertake"

West Midlands Freelance

Last updated 15 April 2003