1998 pay industrial ballot

The BBC is to be told by unions that an industrial action ballot will be held in the campaign to improve this year's 4% pay offer.

At a meeting between BECTU, the NUJ and AEEU on 7 September it was decided to notify the BBC's management that a ballot for industrial action over pay will begin on 16 September and end on 7 October.

This year's 4% pay offer was imposed without agreement in the middle of August.

The unions plan to highlight the gap between the staff increase of 4% this year, and the 9% pay rise given to BBC Director General John Birt. They are planning a day of action in mid-October, where union members at the BBC will be asked to take a few hours of industrial action in order to attend meetings at main buildings throughout the UK.

Members will then be asked to support a call, pitched directly at the BBC's Governors, for an end to double standards over pay for the Corporation's top executives, and a higher priority for staff pay claims. This year the joint union claim was for a 9% rise - exactly the same increase given to the BBC Director General.

In August, union members at the BBC rejected the 4% increase by more than two to one in a consultative ballot, and also called for a full-blown industrial action ballot if the management refused to improve the pay offer.

BBC management stuck to 4% as their final offer, even though the licence fee this year went up by 6%. In years of low licence increases, the Corporation uses its publicly funded status as an excuse to hold down pay rises.

This year the unions have argued that the relatively generous licence increase should be reflected in staff pay packets, which, over the last five years, have fallen behind other organisations and businesses in the UK by nearly 6%.

Meetings of BBC members during August revealed that many staff are as angry about John Birt's pay increase this year, as they are about the management decision to force the 4% rise into pay packets without agreement.

The plan for a day of action is intended to cause maximum embarrassment to the BBC, at a time when budgets in the Corporation are being set for next year, and the budget available for the 1999 pay increase will be fixed.