BBC faces strike over pensions

Unions plan to ballot members for strike action if the BBC presses ahead with controversial changes to its pension scheme.

Delegates from BECTU, NUJ, and Amicus, meeting in London today, voted to resist proposals to close the BBC's scheme to new members, raise the retirement age of 16,000 current staff from 60 to 65, and increase the cost of belonging to the scheme.

Since the changes were announced last week, unions have obtained details of the most recent valuation of the BBC pension scheme, which revealed that, unlike many other pension funds, there was no gaping deficit.

According to actuaries, the BBC's pension fund is able to meet all its liabilities, despite a 16-year pension "holiday" during which the Corporation took advantage of a large surplus to reduce its contribution to the scheme.

Union officials are now due to present the BBC with a list of demands, calling on the BBC to keep the scheme open to new staff, scrap plans to raise retirement age, and retain the cap on staff contributions at the present limit of 7.5% of salary.

If the BBC refuses to negotiate over the demands, or is unwilling to reach agreement with the unions, members across the BBC will be balloted for action.

The Musicians' Union, whose members in various BBC orchestras belong to the Corporation pension scheme, attended the summit meeting today, and has not ruled out industrial action.

Many BBC staff assumed that the changes in pension arrangements were a result of the general UK pensions' crisis. But the official valuation of the £6.4 billion fund not only gave it a clean bill of health, but also predicted that the scheme could continue without any changes provided the BBC and members of the scheme pay in a combined contribution equal to 24.8% of the wage bill.

This figure is only slightly above the 23.5% combined contribution rate that applied in 1990, just before the BBC began its "holiday", for most of which the BBC and scheme members each made a reduced payment of 4.5% of salaries.

Unions will be calling on the BBC to acknowledge that its payment holiday has ended, and resume its share of contributions at a level which makes cost-saving changes unneccesary.

Under the BBC's proposals, money is saved not only by raising retirement age for all staff currently younger than 50, but also by forcing new staff hired after September this year into a "career-average" scheme, rather than the final-salary scheme in operation at the moment.

Unlike the existing scheme, where pensions are based on pay rises throughout an individual's career, the new scheme offers no guarantee that pensions will be related to the salary at the end of someone's working life.

This will reduce the overall cost of providing pensions to BBC staff to roughly 12% of the wage bill, saving the Corporation millions of pounds even though it is planning to pay two-thirds of the contributions, with staff paying the rest.

Unions estimate that new staff in the career-average scheme could face retirement on pensions which are 30-50% lower than they would qualifiy for in the final salary scheme.

The proposed changes to the BBC's pension scheme are not the only problem BECTU will be raising with management. Almost 100 ex-BBC staff now working for Land Securities Trillium in building management jobs are facing ension uncertainty following the collapse of a contract under which LST was due to manage many BBC premises for 30 years.

On the assumption that the contract was secure, staff who were TUPE transferred out of the BBC moved their pensions into a scheme run by LST, their new employer. The termination of LST's contract could deny them membership of a final-salary scheme when a new employer moves in, and the union is demanding that they should be allowed to re-join the BBC's own pension scheme.