Major talks open at BBC

Negotiations on a new pay structure and revised unpredictability allowances have begun.

Representatives from BECTU and NUJ met senior BBC management in a forum called the Joint National Council (NJC) on October 8, in the first of a series of meetings likely to stretch well into next year.

Discussion was limited to planning the framework of meetings which will be dealing with the BBC's proposal to review unpredictability allowances and pay and reward for staff. This year's 2.8% pay increase was conditional on the unions agreeing to join the negotiations, although only BECTU and the electricians' union Amicus actually voted in favour of the offer.

The third union represented at the BBC NJC, journalists' union NUJ, is nevertheless participating in the talks.

BECTU representatives emphasised prior to the first meeting that nothing had been agreed in advance, and the union had reserved the right to pull out of the talks if it believed that members' interests were threatened.

A key union objective, they said, was to reinstate a pay system based on "rate-for-the-job", instead of the current model of wide pay bands which can put staff doing identical work on salaries which differ by thousands of pounds.

The negotiations cover all staff directly employed by the BBC, and staff in BBC Broadcast Ltd. BBC Technology Ltd is participating in the talks, but reserves the right to conduct separate discussions on the issues if appropriate, and staff in Resource Ltd and Worldwide Ltd are not affected by the negotiations.

All parties at the October 8 talks agreed to report on the progress of negotiations in the form of jointly-worded statements at the end of each meeting, and the following communique was issued today, October 10.