Granada offer details

This letter from the union to GTV members summarises the new pay offer from Granada Media Group to staff in Granada Manchester and Liverpool.

9 July 1999

Dear Colleague

Pay and conditions 1999/2000

Meetings held last week at Manchester and Liverpool agreed to put management's new offer out to an individual post ballot. The offer is as follows:

  1. 1999 pay award of 3.6 per cent backdated to 1st January 1999.

  2. All Granada staff to receive on 1st January 2000 a pay award which is 0.5 per cent above the October 1999 inflation figure to be announced in November, subject to a minimum of 2.5 per cent or £450.00 whichever is the greater.

  3. The minimum call for weekend working (defined here as Saturday/Sunday) will be six hours.

  4. In order to improve the quality of members lives:

    1. The Company will schedule an additional six protected rest days to be attached to the existing protected days and rostered on a Saturday/Sunday. It is agreed that to maximise the benefit of this 'Quality of Life' provision the six days will be scheduled on the basis of one per each two-month period subject to (c) below.

    2. Six further additional protected rest days will also be scheduled to provide pairs of rest days. Whenever possible, these pairs of protected rest days will also be scheduled on Saturday/Sunday. Where this is not achievable, these protected days would otherwise still be rostered as pairs with the business reasons for this scheduling requirement explained.

    3. Where employees covered by this agreement are working to buyout arrangements then the application of these pairs of rest days will be pro-rated on a monthly basis i.e. for a buyout period of six months, only six additional protected rest days will be provided of which three are guaranteed to be scheduled as a weekend pair with existing protected days.

    4. This item will be reviewed by management and unions on at least a quarterly basis.

  5. A 'Quality of Life' payment will be introduced, which recognises the commitment of the staff to meeting production requirements which can necessitate frequent work on weekends attached to the Bank Holidays at Easter and in May and August.

    This payment will take the form of an annual award payable in January and calculated on the following basis:

    Number of qualifying
    weekend days worked         		Annual award
    8 £500
    7 £400
    6 £300
    5 £200
    4 £150
    3 £100

The proposal would be effective from 01.01.99 with the first 'Quality of Life' award paid in January 2000.

N.B: A 'qualifying weekend day' is defined as any of the eight weekend days attached to the Bank Holidays, at Easter and in May and August.

The annual award will be index linked to the annual inflation figure.

  • The daily rest break will become 11 hours and 35 hours (when combined with a rest day) in line with the Working Time Regulations 1998.

  • All rostered hours over 50 in a week will be paid at IT new money (hours will not count towards the 148 commitment but will count towards the 60 hours commitment).

  • Expenses allowances to be increased from 1st August by 3.6%.

  • The joint unions and Granada Manchester/Liverpool will embark on a Joint Working Party with terms of reference as follows:

    • To share information regarding the Manchester Resources business. Additionally, relevant Production business information would be shared where appropriate.

    • To agree recommendations which will improve the quality of life for all staff while ensuring the commercial viability of the business.

    • To agree criteria to move employees from freelance/fixed term contracts to staff status.

    • To agree a fair and transparent system for buyout deals and where possible production schedules.

    • To examine career structures and opportunities for career development through training.

    • To examine existing merit review arrangements to ensure fairness and clarity and to develop a pay formula which links pay to the performance of the Manchester Resources business.

    • To reaffirm the existing procedure for future pay negotiations and to agree a local liaison machinery for regular consultation between unions and management.

When agreeing to recommend this offer to you the negotiating committee were conscious that management had informed the union that the escalation of industrial action would lead to Coronation Street coming off the air in two weeks and therefore, to protect their business management were likely to dismiss all staff who refused to work normally. We find this action deplorable and outdated; we would not have taken any action if management had rewarded their staff in the same way that they themselves have been rewarded. Industrial action could also have been avoided if they had been prepared to allow an independent arbitrator to decide whose case was the strongest.

BECTU is a responsible trade union and we recognise that we have made gains during the course of this dispute without having to ask members to take a significant amount of strike action. Some of the biggest winners have been our low paid members in G-Sky-B and Shop. The new Employment Relations Act talks about partnership and resolving differences by ways other than confrontation. In the future Granada will be faced with either accepting arbitration or seeing their workers taking action in the knowledge that they have legal protection against dismissal. The first test of the company's willingness to embrace the new partnership culture will come immediately after the conclusion of this dispute when the Joint Working Party mentioned earlier will deliberate to come up with solutions that improve the quality of members lives. BECTU will enter those talks without pre-conditions and will work with management to ensure that Granada Media Group continues to flourish without having to treat their staff as poorly as they currently do. In the long term, we expect staff to share in the prosperity in just the same way, as you had to make sacrifices in the bad times.

Please vote in this ballot. If the majority vote to accept this offer then the dispute is concluded and the talks on the Working Time Directive and Joint Working Party will commence. If you vote to reject the deal, then from Monday 2nd August, industrial action will be escalated to (a) no more than an 11 hour working day, including meal breaks and (b) a compulsory 12 hour break between turns of duty. The negotiating committee recommends you vote yes to take the gains made up to now without fear of dismissal and to allow us to move on and deal with the quality of life issue.

Whichever way you vote, we will accept the result as a united team and work together on improving the lot of union members at Granada. We could not have come this far without your support and above all, without the tremendous efforts made on your behalf by your shop stewards especially your chief stewards, George Etchells and John Handley.

Thank you for your continuing support.

VOTE TODAY

Yours sincerely

Gerry Morrissey
Assistant General Secretary 		Sharon Elliot
Supervisory Official

Back to news story on Granada ballot

9 July 1999