Governors BBC pay letter
The union has written to the BBC's Board of Governors "to ensure that in 1999 no member of senior management receives a higher pay rise than the staff".
The text of the letter, individually sent to each member of the Board by BECTU Supervisory Official Luke Crawley, is shown below:
"I am writing to tell you about anger felt by our members, your staff, at the decision of the Remuneration Committee to award senior managers double the rate of inflation while the BBC imposed 4% on the staff.
As you will be aware, the joint unions pay claim this year was 9% with a minimum of £900 per annum. We believed that the BBC could afford to take our claim seriously because the Licence Fee was due to rise by RPI + 3% in April 1998. There had been an unexpected windfall of half a million pounds more in Licence Fee income than expected. In addition efficiency measures which affected employment and staff conditions or both had saved £600 million and Transmission was sold for more than £200 million. While recognising that the BBC had liabilities it also had an unusually large amount of unexpected cash.
You will know the BBC's final offer was 4% and even when this was rejected in a consultative ballot, the BBC did not increase that figure. At the meetings held around the country, the response to the 4% offer was low key with some wanting more and some satisfied with the offer. However, when the issue of the Director General's 9% increase and the fact that many of the Executive Board had received more than double the rate of inflation, the meetings were unanimous in their condemnation of such greedy behaviour.
The meetings all asked to be balloted for industrial action and passed a proposition calling on the Board of Governors to ensure that in 1999 no member of senior management should receive a higher pay rise than the staff. Because of the demands of the membership, they were balloted for industrial action, the ballot was successful and the action was called for three hours on 20 October. It was well supported across the BBC.
The BBC claimed in its defence that Sir John Birt's pay rise was to recognise that he had taken on extra responsibilities. The BBC is constantly insisting that your staff, our members, take on more responsibilities under multiskilling and digital technology usually without a pay rise. Since 1987, the salary of the Director General has risen by 416% compared to inflation of 63.7% over the same period whereas staff salaries rose in line with inflation. The BBC have also tried to say that in 1998 more than 40% of the staff have received more than the standard pay rise. This presumably refers to one-off bonuses and performance related pay rises. The way these are distributed to staff is at best confusing and at worst, shrouded in mystery. No departmental manager is able to tell staff what they need to do to achieve a performance related pay rise, and since even exceptional effort often goes unrewarded staff have no confidence in the fairness of the system. The BBC has tried to justify its position by preaching wage restraint to the staff but at the same time the senior executives were filling their pockets to bursting.
If you wish to see wage restraint in the BBC then it must be practised from the top down. We would ask you, as one of the governors, to do everything in your power to ensure that in 1999 no member of senior management receives a higher pay rise than the staff."