GRANADA BBC STAFF TRANSFER DEAL ACCEPTED

BECTU have accepted a deal protecting pension and redundancy rights for staff joining ‘3sixtymedia’, Granada’s and the BBC’s joint company.
The offer ensures continued membership of existing pension schemes and a three-year guarantee of redundancy payments for more than 350 Granada and BBC staff who are being transferred to 3sixtymedia.
A meeting, on October 19, called for an unequivocal guarantee from the new company that if staff were laid off in future, they would receive redundancy payments equivalent to those that would be paid by their current employer.
BECTU has now sent notification of the agreement to Culture Minister Chris Smith, who has the final say on the new company because the publicly-funded BBC has a 20 per cent share.
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.
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.
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.