Briefing for crew on River City

The information below is posted on behalf of Paul McManus, Scotland Officer:

BECTU will be having further meetings with BBC Scotland over the next few weeks about the pay, differentials, types of contract and safety issues at River City. I understand that the production manager will be contacting members soon to start discussing your contracts for this year and I wanted to remind you of a few important facts before you have those discussions. 

1. If you are offered work on a Freelance or Casual basis we have agreed minimum rates so please check that you are not being offered rates below these. Remember the branch agreed a 2% increase in the minimums late last year so please check you have the current rates for 2014/15.
2. The agreed rates are based on a 10 hour day and River City assure us that everyone is contracted for a 50 hour week so please check that the rate you are being offered is for a 50 hour week and that your weekly hours are clearly stipulated in your contract. If you believe that you will be expected to work in excess of your contracted hours please ask the production manager about payment for these and/or let us know asap.
3. Some Schedule E (PAYE) freelances, like boom ops and sound recordists/supervisors are usually offered BBC Fixed term contracts and there is a separate agreed process for offering these. If you are offered one of these contracts, which the BBC often call buy-out contracts, they must tell you exactly what basic BBC 40 hour week salary you are being offered plus exactly how much overtime they want to buy out each week and detail any other BBC conditions they want to buy out too. You must then be offered the choice of accepting the “buy out” or working to a standard 40 hour contract plus overtime and BBC conditions.
4. Late last year the BBC agreed with us that PAYE freelances would now get full BBC annual leave rather than the statutory minimum leave they usually offer so please check your leave entitlement carefully.

If you are unsure on anything the BBC/ River City is offering you, or want to check the contract on offer, please email Paul McManus or call BECTU's Glasgow office on 0141 314 0060 as soon as possible. We will of course keep members updated on our discussions with the BBC as soon as we meet them again.

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