BBC to table pay offer
BBC management are now expected to table their 1999 pay offer to the unions at a meeting on Friday 7 May.
Union negotiators had hoped to receive an offer by the end of April, but the BBC said it needed more time to consider the arguments put forward by negotiators when they presented the claim to management on April 22.
The unions claimed a "substantial increase over inflation", and a minimum increase of £1,000 for each member of staff. When they submitted the claim, negotiators emphasised the anger felt by staff last year when the Director-General received an increase of 9.2%, compared to the 4% rise given to the Corporation's other employees.
In October, union members took part in a day of action, including an industrial stoppage, in protest at "fat cat" pay rises being given to senior managers.
As part of this year's claim, the unions have demanded that top BBC executives should be limited to the same pay increase as the rest of the staff, and have also called for any cash earmarked for individual performance pay increases to be transferred into the general across-the-board percentage rise.
When the claim was submitted in February, average earnings in the UK were rising at 4.1% per annum, and the unions argued that the BBC had plenty of scope to offer an adequate pay rise thanks to the 3.6% increase in the licence fee - well above the rate of inflation.
However, the management were expected to take a tough line over the so-called "headline increase" in order to avoid unfavourable publicity at a time when the licence fee is being reviewed by government. The union pay claim took account of this problem by including a number of demands that benefit staff, without adding to the published percentage pay rise.
These "below the line" claims include the flat-rate minimum, and a call for last year's ACAS formula, which guaranteed five months' notice of redundancy, to be made permanent, instead of expiring this year.
One part of the union claim, an extension of the scheme for preferential pension discounts which is due to expire in July 1999, has already been conceded by management, with a promise that the arrangements will continue until December 2000.
Although the 1999 pay offer has yet to be tabled, management have already rejected a union effort to keep staff employed by Resources Limited within the Corporation's main pay bargaining structure.
When the company was set up last year the BBC made a promise that the thousands of staff transferred in to it would remain covered by BBC pay rates until July 2000. It now looks likely that Resources management will push for separate pay bargaining from next year - a move that BECTU will continue to resist.