BBC 1999 pay offer accepted

Union members at the BBC have voted to accept this year's 2.6% pay offer by margin of almost 5 to 1.

In a ballot which closed at lunchtime on 9 June, nearly 2,500 members of BECTU and the NUJ voted in favour of the increase, with just over 550 voting against.

The participation rate was unusually low with less than 30% of members voting. Results from the AEEU have still to be announced, but it already seems certain that the 2.6% increase, with a minimum rise of £500 for all staff, will appear in August pay packets.

In a separate ballot, union members working for BBC Worldwide have accepted their pay offer, also 2.6%, but without all the conditions of service improvements included in the main BBC offer.

In both ballots, the unions described the final offers from BBC management as the best that could be achieved through negotiation, and pointed out that the proposed increase was higher than last month's inflation figure of 1.6%. However, no recommendation was made on acceptance or rejection of the main corporation-wide offer.

BECTU has already notified the BBC about the results of the pay ballots so that staff can receive the increase on schedule.

The announcement of the ballot results effectively brings this year's pay negotiations to a close, but there is one outstanding item yet to be resolved. In this year's pay claim, the unions called for an assurance that senior managers would be given increases no bigger than the general rise on offer to staff.

This demand followed the outrage last year over John Birt's 9.2% rise, which was more that twice the increase given to staff.

This year, the management were unwilling to comment on the pay awards given to individual managers, and the unions have reserved the right to revive discussion of fat cat pay at the BBC after the Annual Report reveals executive pay increases when it is published in late June.