Granada/BBC staff transfer agreed

A deal protecting pension and redundancy rights for staff joining 3sixtymedia has been accepted by BECTU.

The offer ensures continued membership of existing pension schemes and a 3-year guarantee of redundancy payments for more than 350 Granada and BBC staff who are being transferred to 3sixtymedia, a jointly-owned facilities company.

A meeting on October 18 of union members affected by the plan to set up 3sixtymedia called for an unequivocal guarantee from the new company that if they were laid off in future, staff would receive redundancy payments equivalent to those that would be paid by their current employer.

Management agreed to meet the union again, and a final deal was hammered out next day. BECTU has now sent notification of the agreement to Culture Minister Chris Smith, who has final say on the new company because the publicly-funded BBC has a 20% share.

Prior to the meeting, the management of the new company had offered acceptable guarantees on future pension rights, where existing staff would remain in either the Granada or BBC pension scheme, and on conditions of service.

However, negotiators had run into difficulties on the question of future redundancy payments. The BBC accepted that its current redundancy formula was a contractual right which should transfer with the staff, but refused to accept any financial responsibility for staff once they had transferred.

Granada were prepared to underwrite any future obligation for 3sixtymedia to make redundancy payments, but said that the current formula was not part of staff contracts.

At the reconvened negotiating meeting, Granada agreed to accept that 3sixtymedia should honour the redundancy expectations of staff transferring into the new company, and made a three-year promise to underwrite any liability for payments to BBC staff as well as their own.

Granada's decision to let the BBC off the hook clinched the deal with BECTU, and the union was then able to confirm with Chris Smith that , as far as staff guarantees were concerned, 3sixtymedia had finally tabled an acceptable offer.

The union is, though, still concerned about the new company's financial prospects. Both shareholders, the BBC and Granada, have made commitments to use 3sixtymedia's facilities in its Manchester Quay Street centre, but the levels of work have not been guaranteed.

Without adequate volumes of business from its founders, the new company could fail to meet its break-even target, and staff fear that job cuts could follow.

BECTU's agreement to the staff protection deal could enable 3sixtymedia to start trading on a date near its target of November 1 this year.