Siemens members accept 3.5% rise

BBC Technology members who were outsourced to Siemens last year have voted in favour of this year's increase.

More than 9 out of 10 members participating in a postal ballot which closed today, April 18, accepted the 3.5% offer from Siemens.

The rise, negotiated by BECTU, was offered in response to a union claim for 5%, and will be backdated to April 1, the normal pay anniversary.

Included in the offer, accepted by 93% of members voting, is an increase in all floors and ceilings of grade bands, and an extension of the BBC's 1998 ACAS agreement, which offers redundant staff either five or six months notice of dismissal, and was one of the contractual rights which transferred when the company was sold.

Siemens transferred almost 1,300 ex-BBC staff into its UK operation this January, after buying BBC Technology last October for £150 million.

Union recognition continued after the transfer, and BECTU tabled a 2005 pay claim earlier in the year. Although the ex-BBC staff, who still provide IT and engineering services to the BBC, were split up when the transfer occurred, Siemens agreed to treat them as a single group for the purposes of this year's pay round.

All staff who used to work for BBC Technology will therefore receive the 3.5% rise, whether they now work for Siemens Business Services, or Siemens Communications, which took over the running of telephone systems in the Corporation.

Since the sale, which was opposed by BECTU, the union has maintained day-to-day collective bargaining links with Siemens, and the company has honoured protective clauses covering conditions of service, pensions, and redundancies.

Talks are underway about the closure of the London-based IT telephone helpdesk which handles many of queries raised by BBC staff about their computer systems. Its work is due to transfer to another BBC desk in Bristol, and to a Siemens call centre in Durham.