Ultimatum goes to BBC subsidiaries

BBC Broadcast and BBC Resources have received a union demand for concrete guarantees to staff if they end up being privatised.

BECTU has called for both wholly-owned BBC subsidiaries to give a written assurance that their staff will have protection of their terms and conditions, and access to a final salary pension scheme, if Director-General Mark Thompson goes ahead with a plan to sell them off.

Thompson announced in December 2004 that both companies could be privatised because there was "no need for them to remain in BBC ownership", and BBC Broadcast, advertised for sale earlier this month, has already attracted more than 70 enquiries from would-be purchasers.

Another BBC subsidiary, BBC Technology, was sold in October 2004 to German conglomerate Siemens for £150 million, and although the union is opposed to further privatisation, it has demanded that staff in Broadcast and Resources should be protected with guarantees at least as good as those offered by Siemens.

These included a three-year period in which there would be no imposed changes in terms and conditions, a promise of no compulsory redundancies within the first 12 months of new ownership, and the right to join a Siemens pension scheme with benefits broadly comparable to those on offer from the BBC's own.

Managers in Broadcast and Resources have been given a deadline of April 4 to respond to the demand, and the union is threatening industrial action ballots in both companies if no guarantees are given.

The date coincides with a similar ultimatum issued to the BBC itself at a meeting with union officials on March 24, where the BBC was told that an industrial action ballot would be run across the Corporation if management refused to agree to suspend job cuts for three months to allow full discusion of Thompson's plan to close nearly 4,000 posts.

At the meeting managers agreed to consider the demand, tabled on behalf of all three BBC staff unions, but warned that they were unlikely to respond until just before the April 4 deadline.