Re-run of BBC Technology ballot

A union ballot on a new BBC company has been abandoned to allow the vote to be taken again.

The decision to scrap the first ballot, which came only hours before the papers were due to be counted, followed complaints from members and branches about the limited choice of questions on the original voting form.

In the first ballot, members among the 1300 BBC staff who are planned to transfer into a new subsidiary company, BBC Technology Limited, were asked whether or not they accepted the Corporation's final proposals for treatment of staff once they had moved.

Many members who received voting papers contacted the union to clarify whether a vote to accept the guarantees on offer for pay and conditions implied that they supported the BBC's decision to set up the new company.

After reviewing the wording of the ballot question, and considering representations from some of the branches affected by the change, union officials decided to cancel the first ballot and run another one using new questions.

Arrangements for the second ballot were underway today, October 11, and papers should be sent out to members early in week beginning October 16. The voting papers will contain two clear questions: one on whether or not members accept the pay and conditions guarantees on offer, and a second asking whether they support the creation of the wholly-owned subsidiary company.

Read details of Technology ballot

Earlier this week the union clarified its stance on the BBC's plan to create yet another wholly-owned subsidiary in a letter to Culture Minister Chris Smith. The letter was intended to clear up the ambiguities which had led to confusion among members voting in the ballot.

In the letter BECTU Assistant General Secretary Gerry Morrissey said:

"We support the BBC's plans to bring together all the IT/Technology functions currently dispersed across the directorates into one unit. However we are not convinced that what the BBC intends doing with this business requires Limited status. For example, their external work is not so extensive that it will bring them into conflict with current European legislation.

If the Government is minded to support the creation of BBC Technology Limited, then this should not happen prior to the level of external work exceeding the European limits."

This policy announcement was intended to reflect the union's continued doubts about the BBC's belief that it needs to turn BBC Technology into a Limited company in order to sell services to the commercial market.

A private briefing on the company's future business plans left union representatives unconvinced that the levels of external work envisaged for BBC Technology Limited were high enough to breach competition laws, or the European restrictions on public bodies engaging in commercial activity.

BECTU's attitude towards the new company has been fiercely debated within the union. Many members who are planned to transfer from the main BBC into it have condemned the proposals and called for industrial action to resist the move.

Others who are transferring from BBC Resources Limited, another wholly-owned subsidiary, have expressed less concern about the creation of the company. The debate has also been complicated by recent legal cases in other industries that have made it difficult, or impossible, for unions to organise industrial protests against the transfer of workers from one employer to another, provided the TUPE rules on protection of pay and conditions are honoured.

In the re-run ballot, the union will again be advising members that the pay, conditions, and pensions guarantees on offer from the BBC for staff joining BBC Technology Limited are better that those under TUPE alone, and are the best that can be achieved through negotiation.

BECTU officials will be briefing both the BBC and Chris Smith on this latest development in the union's deliberations on the new company. The BBC is anxious to transfer staff on November 1, but need the Minister's approval. Chris Smith was expected by the union to make his decision once the views of members were known at the close of the original ballot.

It was unclear as preparations were made for the second ballot what effect the delay would have on the Government's decision-making process.