Resources talks break down
Talks on the establishment of BBC Resources Limited, an incorporated company comprising 4,500 existing Resources staff, broke down today, Monday March 23.
BBC management were unwilling to concede union demands for guarantees that staff would retain their current terms and conditions for five years. BECTU and the AEEU declared a formal failure to agree, and called for a national level meeting with senior Corporation management to resolve the impasse. Resources Directorate, which has the right to block any meeting at national level, was considering its reaction.
The demands rejected by management were tabled at a previous meeting on February 23 - union negotiators wanted a promise that in the first five years of the company's existence there would be no changes in conditions of service including the formula for redundancy payments, no compulsory redundancies, and entitlement for any new employees to join the BBC pension scheme with full existing benefits. Additionally, the unions wanted a guarantee that the company, which is planned to be established as a wholly-owned BBC subsidiary on July 1, would not be privatised in future.
At the March 23 meeting, BBC Resources management said that they could give no long-term guarantees on conditions of service other than the protection offered by the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations (TUPE), which does not prevent changes in terms and conditions if these are the result of business need. Management confirmed that changes could occur in Resources Limited, but said that this would be "normal business", and not connected with the TUPE transfer.
No guarantee was offered to the unions on future job security, despite assurances given by management at various staff meetings that employment levels would be "broadly the same in three or four years as they are now". Management's unwillingness to give a formal written commitment on this issue was condemned by the unions.
Only two concessions were made at the March 23 meeting: management gave an assurance that they had no plans to alter the current formula for calculation of redundancy payments, and reaffirmed that existing staff transferred to Resources Limited would remain in the BBC Pension Scheme.
Negotiators also questioned whether BBC Resources' planned increase in commercial activities, which the unions support, obliged the BBC to transfer the staff into a private company. Legal advice from leading counsel obtained by BECTU indicated that a wholly-owned subsidiary company would be under exactly the same constraints as the main Corporation under the BBC's Charter and competition laws.
Resources managers promised to explain outside the meeting why they had not followed BBC Production by channelling their external work through BBC Worldwide Limited to avoid legal difficulties. Only a week before the meeting the Production Directorate announced a multi-million dollar deal with the US Discovery Channel, which apparently posed no constitutional or legal problems.
Both BECTU and the AEEU have said that they oppose the establishment of Resources Limited, and plan to ballot staff for industrial action if no agreement is reached on employment guarantees.