This is taken from Ariel, w/c June 1 2009:

£450 PAY RISE AT A TIME OF TURMOIL


The modest pay deal agreed with the unions last week will give most people an extra £8.65 a week. The joint unions – Bectu, NUJ and Unite – are recommending acceptance.


The £450 flat rate increase in basic salary, which will appear on pay slips over the next 12 months from August, rather than be given as a lump sum, will benefit around 18,000 staff or 94 percent of the workforce. This will cost the BBC around £8.1m over the course of the year.


For those on £60,000 or more (around 1150 people across the organisation), there will be no increase. The £60,000 cap, which follows the salary freeze for the most senior executives and the announcement that there will be no bonuses for anyone until at least July 2010, is the same as that imposed at cash-stricken ITV.


Unlike in previous years, the pay increase at the BBC will not lead to a rise in allowances such as unpredictability, night, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day working.


The floors and ceilings of most pay levels stay the same, although the BBC has agreed to raise the floors of grades 2-4 by a flat rate of £200. This will benefit mostly new joiners and means, for example, that if a job currently pays £20,000 a year, that sum rises to £20,200 pa.


The £450 flat rate deal is aimed at bridging the gap, albeit in an extremely small way, between the highest earners and those at the bottom of the scale. A percentage increase would have a different effect: a 2 percent rise for example would mean an extra £400 a year for someone on £20,000 but £1000 for a senior colleague earning £50,000.


The £450 falls far short of the £1800 rise originally requested for each staff member by the unions but Frances Allcock, acting director of BBC People at the time of the negotiations, says, the amount reflects ‘exceptional economic circumstances’.


Union officials have revealed that the initial BBC proposal was for a £385 increase. ‘[We] pressed the BBC to improve its offer… despite its financial difficulties, and the £450 emerged,’ explains an email sent to union members.


The email goes on to say that the unions believe the offer is ‘unlikely to provide sufficient opposition among members to prompt a strike ballot’, and that they want ‘to reserve energy for fights over pensions and job cuts that may be on the horizon’.

ARIEL VIEW
By Sally Hillier, deputy editor, Ariel

A pay deal that fits the times


THE FLAT RATE pay deal of £450 does not sound much but will cost the corporation around £8m and, as one staff member told Ariel when the details were announced: ‘In the current climate, it’s better than a slap in the face.’


Redundancy, repossession, reduced hours… that is the reality for many at the moment. On Monday, for example, it was revealed that Honda workers, who have only just returned to their Swindon factory after a four-month shutdown, are taking a three percent pay cut for the next ten months hoping it will safeguard their jobs.

It’s not just the general economic situation that helped shape the BBC deal. When the unions submitted their first claim in January, the retail price index was still rising. Now it is falling, so any request for a rise ‘to keep pace with inflation’ would have rung rather hollow.


Rightly, the unions pressed for greater assistance for the lowest paid, who benefit more from flat rate payments than from percentage increases.


On the whole, though, people here don’t do too badly. Average pay for those working for the licence fee funded domestic BBC is about £43,000, compared to the UK average of around £24,000.


Along with other institutions, the BBC will be the subject of increased scrutiny in the coming months; had it agreed a significant pay rise for its employees, it would have faced difficult questions from both its usual critics and the wider public. This time, smaller is better.