BBC Resources deal rejected

Revised proposals for changes in BBC London Operations have been turned down in a ballot.

Only 14.5% of members participating in the ballot voted to accept a new package which included cuts in conditions of service payments and job numbers.

The package contained a number of concessions from management which were tabled in a effort to reach agreement after a one-day strike over the changes in December.

However, negotiators believed that the revised proposals were still unacceptable, and urged members in Studios, Post-Production and Graphics, and Outside Broadcasts to vote for rejection.

Members in the department are now free to resume their campaign of industrial action against the changes, and instructions were likely to be issued early in February.

Thanks to a management decision to postpone the threatened implementation of the new conditions of service for at least a month, there was no need for the union to proceed with plans for an immediate work-to-rule once the ballot closed today January 31.

Management are now expected to give individual staff one month's notice of a change in their terms and conditions by letter in the next few days. This would move the implementation date into early March.

In the postal ballot of members, 861 voting papers were issued. 52 members voted to accept the new package, compared with 305 who voted to reject.

Trouble started in London Operations last July when management tabled plans to save £12m, half of it in staff costs, and the dispute is separate from the BBC-wide changes in expenses payment which were due to be introduced without agreement on February 1.