Strike ballot in BBC Resources
Talks about BBC Resources Limited end without agreement. Industrial action likely after members' ballot.
A final meeting today, Tuesday April 7, between unions and the BBC failed to produce any agreement on the transfer of 4,500 staff to a new company, BBC Resources Limited, and an industrial action ballot is likely to start after Easter.
Although the Corporation made concessions on pension treatment of new staff joining the wholly-owned subsidiary company, and presented a statement which indicated that the Board of Governors were "not in favour" of full-blown privatisation, there were several issues on which the unions were not offered acceptable commitments by the management.
Read full statement from the BBC Board of Governors
The unions had sought assurances that, for an initial period within the company, there would be no compulsory redundancies, no changes in individual terms and conditions, and no break-up of BBC-wide collective bargaining.
At the meeting, BBC management confirmed that new staff joining Resources Limited would, for at least three years, be able to join the central BBC pension fund on current benefits, and reiterated that there were no plans at present to alter the formula for calculation of redundancy payments.
However the only other guarantee that the BBC was willing to give on conditions of service was a commitment to preserve the existing framework for one year from establishment of the new company, without any promise to keep individual staff on their present contracts. This would allow the management to change terms and conditions for groups of staff within Resources any time after July 1, the first day of Limited Company trading - for example moving sections from hours contracts to days contracts without any hourly overtime.
Management confirmed the unions' view that the TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) regulations did not offer cast-iron protection of terms and conditions for any period after the transfer.
The BBC's reluctance to guarantee levels of employment was based on the likelihood of further re-organisation within Resources Limited, with the possibility of job losses. Similarly, management's stated intention to separate collective bargaining in Resources Limited from the rest of the BBC was to allow flexibility if they ever wanted to change arrangements for negotiations.
The employment status of the Chief Executive of Resources Limited, Rod Lynch, was raised by the unions following reports that he would not be directly employed by Resources Limited. Management, while declining to reveal any individual employee's terms, outlined general principles which clearly indicated that he would continue to be employed centrally by the BBC.
Training and re-skilling of staff was also raised, since Resources Limited plans to expand activity in new markets like corporate video and multi-media authoring. Management said they might consider taking central control of the various training budgets in separate business units, but offered nothing more.
BECTU and the AEEU plan to ballot members in BBC Resources, and will give statutory notice of possible industrial action to the Corporation within the next few days.
Summary
- Talks on the creation of Resource Limited have completely broken down.
- The unions failed to secure adequate assurances on job security, conditions of service, training of staff, and centralised collective bargaining.
- Management have given acceptable assurances on pension rights and the redundancy formula. The BBC's Governors have said they are "not in favour" of full privatisation of Resources, but have not stipulated any period during which a sell-off would be banned.
- BECTU and the AEEU plan to ballot Resources members for industrial action in order to secure a better package of protection for staff.
- The unions remain unconvinced that Resources Limited is necessary to allow the BBC to trade externally, and oppose the principles underlying the proposed change.