Letter from BECTU to all members in most BBC departments: BBC pay and reward negotiations
15 May 2003
As part of last year's pay deal, BECTU members voted to go into talks with the BBC over a new system of pay and grading, and also possible changes to Unpredictability Allowances. Progress has been painfully slow and there has been little or no publicity because the Joint Unions agreed with the BBC that what was discussed represented initial thoughts on the part of the BBC and it would not be helpful to have it publicly aired. At each meeting since Christmas we have pressed the BBC for detailed proposals that we can discuss with our members and this letter represents the first step in that process.
Originally the talks were meant to be well on the way to a conclusion by now, and the second part of the two year pay deal (RPI in April, announced in May +0.5%) depended upon that fact. The BBC have accepted that the delay has been caused by them and have proposed to pay the second part of the deal provided the BBC and the unions have agreed on two key priorities:
- The principles for:
- A framework for unpredictable working.
- A salary progression framework.
- The proposed timetable leading up to and beyond August 2003
There are several meetings in the diary for April and May, and the expectation is that these priorities
could be agreed by June.
This letter will set out some of the detail of the BBC's proposals for the framework referred to and also some of the initial criticisms of it. The BBC have repeatedly stressed that these are proposals that are subject to further negotiations.
Working Flexibly
The BBC believes that the 24 hour a day nature of its operations means that everyone it employs should expect some flexibility at work and it believes that salaries will be determined with the level of flexibility in mind. They envisage a new definition of disruption (see below) and staff who experience it will be paid more on a fully pensionable basis. They also suggest that those staff who experience even higher levels of disruption should be paid more for each occasion when they experience it.
What is still unclear is what will happen to those who do not need to work flexibly; will those areas of the BBC which always work Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 be protected from disruption? Under the new proposal Protected Days Off would continue but for staff who experience genuine disruption they would be limited to 4 in a four week period. This appears to mean an end to UPA1 which guarantees 8 Protected Days Off in four weeks. The definition of disruption proposed by the BBC is as follows:
"Genuine disruption is likely to involve working to schedules which vary from week to week, which are not fixed with more than two weeks' notice, and which are then at least twice a month changed with less than 48 hours notice over a 6 month period."
By "changes" the BBC gives several examples, including a change of scheduled day, a change of shift from night to day or vice versa, a change in start/finish time of more than 4 hours and a change in hours worked by more/less than 4 hours.
The definition is inelegant and suggests that you could have up to 11 changes in a 6 month period and not qualify, or changes with more than 48 hours notice and not qualify. It appears to say that you will be notified of your schedules with not more than 2 weeks notice! At the moment the guaranteed periods for notification of duties on UPA1 are at least two weeks notice, and on UPA2 at least one week. We have yet to respond to the BBC but we will be looking for a definition which encompasses anti-social working and a proper work/life balance. We also believe that it is essential that staff who are not required to work outside of normal hours should have that guarantee written into their contract. People who work as outlined above would receive an all-in pensionable salary which reflected that there would be no add-on allowance like UPA1 or UPA2. The BBC also proposes additional payments on a retrospective basis for staff who experienced even greater levels of disruption.
Obviously the new salary levels are vital for this system to make any sense and they have yet to be tabled. The main difficulty with the BBC's proposals is that they still focus on disruption and unpredictability and appear to ignore BECTU's point about the need to recognise and reward anti-social working. We have said that if the BBC is to live up to its fine words on work/life balance the salary system needs to reflect this. The BBC have not yet tabled any proposals for what would happen to those staff currently in receipt of an Unpredictability Allowance (UPA) who would not receive it in the future. BECTU's position remains that we do not see why our members in receipt of a UPA should lose money because the BBC wishes to introduce a new system.
Salary Progression
The BBC propose that from August 2004 there would be new job families. This would mean that TV, Radio and Online Producers, who are currently on the same or very similar job descriptions and salary bands, could be in three separate job families. The salary range for one job family would be independent of other job families. Salary ranges would be market-related and would be periodically compared with the market.
Each salary level will have a range:
- A development zone for people who are learning the job. This would start at 85%.
- A target salary range for people who are performing all the job requirements. The bottom of this range would be 100% to 115%.
- An area above the 115% level which may be used for exceptional cases.
As a new employee you would expect to be in the development zone and you would move to the beginning of the target salary range (100%) over not less than three years.
It would be possible to move above the 100% point depending on differences in "job dimension" or "specialism" or "individual performance". It would also be possible to move above 115% if the individual had exceptional talents or developed additional specialist expertise.
The basic notion of starting at 85% and moving up over 3 years to 100% is fine in principle, but would depend on where those points are fixed. If they are set at acceptable levels then we would have achieved what we set out to do which is to re-establish a rate for the job. However the main criticism of the 100-115%, and over-115% levels is the lack of clarity and objectivity over how you move up. It appears to be at the discretion of your manager, which is part of the current problem. However it is possible that the BBC may be able to demonstrate how this would work in an open and objective way.
Crucially, the salary for a job would be set above 100% because of "different work patterns which may be required within a job category". This is a reference to the replacement for UPA and you can infer from this that a premium of up to 15% may be paid for "genuine disruption". The point needs to be made Unpredictability Allowance 1 (UPA) is 10% and UPA2 is 20%, which suggests that the figure of 15% falls between the two.
Recognition
Under this heading the BBC would want to retain the latitude to reward staff for an outstanding contribution, either with a cash bonus or with "non-financial recognition…. in the form of vouchers or a gift." The Joint Unions are opposed to these kinds of awards because leaving it to the discretion of the manager causes problems. Your manager could also move you up from 100% towards 115% and beyond 115% if he or she felt that your performance was exceptional.
Conclusion
As you can see this letter outlines proposals which the BBC is making which will make big differences to the way you work and how you can expect to progress in your job. The next meeting with the BBC is on May is Thursday 22nd and there are further meetings in the diary for June. In the meantime please can you feed back your thoughts through your local branch secretary. I will write to you again when there have been further developments.
Luke Crawley
Supervisory Official
