Huge Granada vote

Campaigning by BECTU and PIRC before this year's Granada Group AGM resulted in an unprecedented vote against boardroom greed.

Nearly a third of shareholders either voted against or abstained over the re-election of John Ashworth, a non-executive director on the remuneration committee. PIRC, the pensions and investment research consultants, said the vote showed the highest level of opposition yet to the reappointment of a renumeration director, according to its records of FTSE 350 companies over the last four years: directors were usually re-elected on votes of 98% in favour.

The huge vote against the management reflected shareholders' anger with the antics of five Granada directors, who paid themselves £374,500 between them as compensation for cutting service contracts from three years to two. In addition, they had enforced a pay rise of just three per cent on the workforce at a time when inflation was 3.7%, making their rise effectively a pay cut. BECTU is now in dispute with Granada at all four franchises.

To draw attention to the double standards of Granada's fatcat directors, BECTU members stood outside the venue of the annual general meeting with a large placard depicting the five directors as fat cats, courtesy of cartoonist Steve Bell. The union also distributed leaflets to the shareholders as they arrived. Titled 'A message to Granada shareholders from your workforce', the shareholders read them earnestly as they entered the meeting. During the meeting angry speeches were made.

One shareholder was applauded when he asked whether the remuneration committee would reassess Gerry Robinson's pay after his decision to take on the extra responsibility of chairing the Arts Council. Another shareholder said they had money "coming out of your ears while endeavouring to lower employees' standard of living awarding pay rises below inflation".

Gerry Robinson, answering his many critics, missed the point saying that the company had tried to act openly while others had disguised compensation as higher bonuses, for example. He had considered giving his own payment of £138,334 to charity but had decided against doing so. It was not a significant sum as far as he was concerned.