BBC offer rejected

Members of all three staff unions at the BBC have voted to reject this year's 4% pay offer.

Just over 75% of BBC staff belonging to BECTU, the NUJ and the AEEU, voted to reject the pay offer - a margin of more than three to one - and 65% of those polled wanted a chance to vote for industrial action in a further ballot which could start later this month.

Despite being run at the height of the holiday season, the pay ballot attracted high levels of participation - in BECTU's case more than 4 out of 10 members polled sent back their voting papers.

The high vote against a 4% increase came in spite of a management attempt to head off resistance by putting the rise, without agreement, into the pay packets received by BBC staff in the middle of August.

Unions believe that the vote shows a strong reaction from staff against the 9% pay increase awarded to John Birt the Director General this year - twice the rate on offer to staff and ironically, exactly the same as the original union pay claim for 1998.

BBC management have been informed of the ballot result, and the unions have called for another negotiating meeting where the Corporation could put a better pay offer on the table.