Crown Castle promises no changes
BECTU has won a pledge of no changes in pensions or terms and conditions following the sale of transmission company Crown Castle.
The assurance came at a meeting with company management on June 28, the day that US owner, Crown Castle International, announced that it was planning to sell its UK interests to utility giant National Grid Transco (NGT) for $2.04bn.
Staff will not have the protection of TUPE regulations, which do not apply when a company's shares are bought out by a new owner, but BECTU, the trade union representing hundreds of employees, welcomed Crown Castle's commitment to honour existing terms and conditions.
NGT's offer, worth £1.13bn, is more than four times the £233m paid for Castle Towers' transmitter business when it was bought from the BBC in February 1997.
At the meeting in the company's Warwick HQ BECTU representatives urged management to use some of the windfall gain to rectify problems in its occupational pension fund, which like many other UK funds, is facing a significant deficit in investments.
However, it seems that the American parent company of Crown Castle UK plans to use at least $1.3bn of the sale proceeds to pay off its own debt, with the remaining $740m earmarked either for further debt repayments, or investment in new US business.
No cash will change hands until the sale has been approved by Ofcom and the DTI in Britain, and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, and final approval is not expected until the end of August.
National Grid Transco plans to combine into a single business Crown Castle's 3000 transmitter and mobile phone masts, and the 1400 phone masts currently operated by its own subsidiary Gridcom.
Crown Castle management revealed that the sale could mean closure of Gridcom's Watford HQ, putting its 400 staff at risk of redundancy, or relocation to Warwick, where Crown's head office manages more than 850 staff.
BECTU officials predicted that staff in back-office areas like IT, finance, HR, and legal services, could face job cuts whether they worked for Crown Castle or Gridcom.
One of Crown Castle's main activities is the operation of TV and radio transmitters, both for the BBC and for the Freeview digital TV consortium, where BECTU's membership is concentrated. Management would not be drawn on the danger of redundancies in Crown's broadcast business, but pointed out that Gridcom did not operate in this sector, and there was no duplication of jobs.
The BBC itself had, according to Crown managers, been consulted about the sale, and had accepted assurances about continuity of the company's broadcasting services.
BECTU has been promised full consultation with Crown Castle as the sale progresses, and is pressing for meetings with new owner NGT.